*after the poem Lunchlady by Silas House
Dear Mr. House,
After Robert Hayden, you write,
I thanked her, but not enough, now or then.
The hot kitchen recipes
of those days linger like afternoon Commons.
Offering us food on the sly, Shepard’s pie
and lasagna. Many of the students never saw
her, auntie June, nor felt the firelight in her stare.
Never witnessed the pop of grease
at breakfast or the hot dark before auntie Shirley
flipped on the cool white of fluorescent lights.
Father Piltz had no rage or kept it hidden,
like the good dishes we dropped, splintered
and buried under the juice boxes and napkins.
Always ready to catch me by the pale bleached
collar yet leave his wife the reading quietly
and with concern, of the dove colored code written
on my face and arms; like yolky egg gone cold.
–My hands–
left them unscrubbed, to remain a stain. Forever
from the scape pit to the Hobart to the blue-silver
of the stainless steel shelves.
You write, I did not understand the moment.
Me too, Silas. Me too.
and Hayden, What did I know, what did I know
of love? Auntie June says, Here, have a brownie,
one ice cream sandwich.
Later, much later a tray comes through a door
the inmate in the cell next to mine whispers,
You are more a friend to me than I am to myself.
We’ve done our best, but what do we know?
We can only hope our best is good enough.
“Inverted” and still respectfully yours,
Coleman Davis
