Dinner
At five on the dot.
Meat (except Fridays), potatoes, vegetable, dessert.
Father talks of work.
We listen. No music. No T.V.
Mother feigns interest.
No questions asked.
Except Did you do your chores?
A list posted weekly for the five of us.
Mother fidgets, gets up, sits down.
She knows her chores.
We each wait to be excused.
I sit and gag on cold, boiled carrots after all is cleared.
Later mom complains about father’s bad grammar:
And we had the same English teacher, she spews.
***
Read more of Marc Frazier’s work.
Published in Each Thing Touches (Glass Lyre Press, 2015)
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Photo by Sippanont Samchai /Flickr