Dinner Time

In this poem for my ENGL 382B (Intermediate Poetry) class, I was asked to use a saying of an "ancestor" in a foreign language and interject it in my poem. I decided to use my gradma's saying "No te llenes tus ojos antes de tu barriga." Before you go asking me for a definition or go out looking for what that means, the poetry provides ample explanation. Here it is for your viewing pleasure, my latest poem, Dinner Time.

Dinner Time
by Luis C. Medina

It’s like she cooks for an army,
eyes grow large and mouths water
as we sit waiting. I don’t want leftovers,
I want everything, now—AHORA!
“No te llenes tus ojos antes de tu barriga.”
That’s grandma’s saying, it means something like
“don’t fill your eyes before your stomach.”
In other words, don’t eat what your stomach can’t handle.
If grandma only understood one thing:
ain’t no arroz con gandules in Carbondale worth a damn.
She looks at me and repeats,
“No te llenes tus ojos antes de tu barriga.”
I’ll ignore it—just like last time
and every time before that.
The next morning I’ll end up regretting it.
I shoulda listened to grandma.