was a lot of fun. Good food and lots of good poetry and prose on the subject of food.

I read “A Lemon” by Pablo Neruda, and a nasty and lovely little poem about bad poetry (comparing it to shit after a big meal of steamed rice and meat) by the nineteenth/early twentieth century Vietnamese poet Tran Te Xuong. I’ve been reading a lot of older world poetry lately just for kicks.

I also wrote this for the evening — just a little ditty; accompanied it with some guitar. It’s been a LONG time since I wrote something light and relentlessly positive and I wasn’t sure I could do it. I may do more with this at some point, but for now this is enough.

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Angel Food

the random backfire
one block away
means nothing for once

and the neighbor’s reggaeton
ripping a hole in saturday afternoon
means even less

when there’s angel food cake
on the coffee table
for yolanda’s birthday

daddy’s home for once
instead of serving someone else’s chicken
to someone else’s guests

mama’s not looking as tired
as she usually does
after a week on the Wendy’s register

the whole family’s here
bearing hot dishes and foil pans
full of what they’ve made for each other

someone drops some mac and cheese
in a corner
the dog gets to work on the pile

while everyone laughs and yolanda claps
her smile’s more delicious than usual
with that smidge of frosting on her chin

yolanda has a love for angels
and seven years worth of joy bubbles up today
with all these angels bearing heaping trays

of cookies and wings and old recipes
they just call “grandma’s favorite”
there’s white bread and stewed tomatoes

but yolanda’s got no business there
when there’s sweet sugar frosting
clinging to the white crumbs on her plate

outside this room
there may be people addicted to devil’s food
and the darkness on their lips may be rich enough

but in here yolanda’s having a birthday
with her yellow dress sweetened by more
than the smear of angel food that her mother

rushes to clean away before that dog
starts licking it off her
(even though

yolanda
would probably
beat him to it if she let her)

and when she’s done
she turns to her sister
and says

I’ll never taste
an angel food cake again
without thinking of yolanda

and the beating of wings
covers
the break in her voice