We sat in brown folding chairs,
gobbled down the seasoned chicken
as Daddy barbecued it, ‘slow, slow’,
lathering it with his home-made sauce.
We packed it in with soft, white bread,
washed down with cleansing amber beer.
Dutch kept talking to Daddy
but didn’t include me.
I didn’t know what they were saying,
so I wouldn’t, couldn’t stop eating
the chicken and drinking the beer.
One o’clock in a blink
became five thirty, and my belly wasn’t tired.
Daddy finished
with grilling the chicken.
I should have been full.
The hinges of my jaws
ached from so much use,
yearned for contact of a different taste.
Phil Flott is a retired Catholic priest. He has work recently in Passager, Pensive Journal, Sangam, Vita Poetica, Poetic Sun, Mulberry Literary, and so on.
