Poem #5: Dinner Time

Dinner Time

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."
Don't eat what your stomach can't handle.

If grandma only understood one thing:
ain't no arroz con gandules in Carbondale
that's 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 the time before that.
The next morning I'll end up regretting it.
I knew I shoulda listened to grandma.


This was one of my favorite poems to write. The assignment for this piece was to incorporate a "foreign flavor." By that, I think my instructor wanted us to use a family story and/or the element of foreign language in our poem. That's easy, my family's Puerto Rican and a lot of the better stories come from the dinner table. And really, if you take anything from this poem, you should learn that grandma knows best. And that food in Carbondale ain't got sh*t on what my grandma cooks! If you've ever been to my house, you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about!