Chinese business lunch

If meals were like interviews
I’d take smaller bites and always,
always clear my plate.

Patricia's menu

She says, “You should try my cooking. It’s really good”
then pours me a cup of hot homemade coffee and tugs
at her always creeping thong below her pink lace nightie.

For breakfast there was cereal, fruit loops with marshmallows.
For lunch, a fried chicken patty with yellow cheese, and Doritos.
For dinner, Kentucky Fried Chicken.

She says her mom never taught her to cook
Then Tommy told her cooking was the maid’s work.
Now, with no Tommy or money for a maid, “I learned to cook”
she said.

For breakfast there were empanadas bought
down the road at Momi’s.
For lunch, pollo con carne from a bag in the freezer and
dinner was leftover Pizza hut.

Panama's Deception

Patricia’s grin lets me know there’s something special for dinner.
It’s 10:30 at night and even her two daughters have waited up.
There on the cold stove sits hot KFC, with the colonel winking at me.

rumors

I.
Sancocho
I can only imagine
the healing
powers of sancocho. Spicy
chicken stew, cilantro maybe,
garlic perhaps,
some corn or rice
in or on the side.
Patricia says
It’s delicious
and easy to make.

II.
Legendary Lasagna
Not once did I eat lasagna
in Panama. Patricia says
she makes
amazing lasagna, and
when she does, Andres,
Victor, and Tommy
all come over
for a bite.

The last of the salt

The food piles high
on each family member’s plate
but mine is the highest.
We sit in silence, only putting energy into big bites.
Spoonfuls of rice and guando,
mixing with luke-warm cafe pobre.

Tonight Mama cooked yucca.
It was this afternoon that she dug it out
from the red ground with her machete.
Tonight Mama cooked bollo.
It was last night that she crushed the maiz,
and this morning that she willed it into even rolls.
Tonight Mama cooked 2 eggs just for me. She saved
the last of the salt to strategically
place on each one.

She says to eat it all because our walk is far tomorrow.

oranges you drink

This orange, pale and speckled with hints
of green, dangles from a stem with 4 others.
If I were home, I would pass right by it thinking it less than perfect.
I am a child and you are my mother.

Like a dance practiced since the first breath, you grip
three of the oranges in one hand, and a knife
in the other, removing the skin in one spiral.
Like the child, now holding the bare orange in my own hand,
I watch you, longing for a lesson in thirst.
Your hands cradle the orange, and your teeth
gently expose the top to our overflowing cups.

oranges you eat

Just one look at this dark green
orange and the seemingly thick skin
slides from fingernail to floor.

maple sugar candy

Packed into a plastic bag the size
of a cellophane wrapper, are little crumbles
of once whole maple sugar candy.
Using broken Spanish I explain that the broken
pieces come from a tree.
Juan Carlos and Glady take little bites
at first, then the rhythm gets faster.
Glady takes the bag to his mother for inspection. First
a nibble, followed
by a second, then slowly
she wraps the remaining crumbs
back into the tiny plastic bag
and tucks
it away in her pocket
for later.

Maiz Pilado

After the rhythmic dance
between wooden pestle and clay mortar,
whole kernels of corn now look like saw dust.
The chickens get a taste (and the little puppy too)
and the rest is wrestled into dough.

Jingibre tea

After dinner, when the sun sits back
into the mountains, and Papa turns
the radio on, Mama starts the water.

Sips of sweet spice and steam
get caught
in the soft glow of our flashlights
We sit at the table in silence
sharing only the thick inhales of jingibre.

unsalted

flipping through photos of fried tortilla,
golden greased batter gripping the cast iron,
guando beans, like pebbles in the pan, six
shades of green, mixed with white, yellow,
brown beans too, fresh eggs
each morning, fried plantains, coffee
made from scratch. I feel foolish now,
remembering only tasteless texture
and the endless
chore of trying
to clean
my plate.