My Mother made meatloaf for Mr. Franklin's widow

As published in The Larcenist magazine.

There are so many things I don't understand.
I am so sure others understand these things.
I don't ask.

Why anyone would knowingly buy an old house
where body parts were found stuffed in the walls
or who could possibly live long enough to finish using
that giant gallon jug of pure Vermont maple syrup
or how come whole grapes haven't inevitably caused
more choking deaths, and how can one small garden
statue of the eternally blessed virgin Mary protect
a house full of liars, lawbreakers, sinners, & thieves.

I want to know how the last living member
of a large close family faces a holiday alone
and why my mother made meatloaf when
the neighbor's husband died and brought it
over hot, like she thought Mrs. Franklin would
stop crying and eat it right away, with no
baked potato, no peas, and a picture of her
dead husband staring her right in the face.

I'd like to know who decided it was so wrong
to take the last old chocolate in the box or why
it's biblical bad luck when a black cat walks by
and then, if this is true, oh why oh why oh why
do I own a big black-as-black-can-get-black cat?

There are answers for these things that
keep me awake at night. I'd like to know
what they are, but mostly I need to know...

Did Mr. Franklin's grieving widow wish she had
a nice baked potato and a side of green peas
on October 12, 1965, to go with the meatloaf
my mother made her because her husband died?

Author's Note

This is autobiographical. The names have been changed to protect the meatloaf.

Reviews

[Ken Simm.]

Its not just the subject of the poem. Its the way the poem is written. You get under the skin. You examine the motives. You write as if the thoughts of the protagonist were still yours and not just a memory. Nothing in this is at second hand. Everything seems as fresh as it was and you somehow wish it wasn't. I cannot fathom such skill and much as the word does not seem to fit, panache. This is more than fine. This is crafted to the nth degree and with that comes a disturbing beauty.

[LJW]

Thank you Ken.
I wrote this in 5 minutes.
It is unedited.
I have no craft.
Nor panache.
Just movies in my head.

Your assessment of my non-talent humbles me.

[Marie Anzalone]

Witness protection program for meatloaf. I love it.

I can recall my own mother exactly once in my life telling me that she loved me. It was my first time calling from a pay phone in Guatemala. She is the type to show kindness and appreciation and spite, and just about every other human thing, with actions, not words. Mind you, she reads more voraciously than I do... this woman has the words. I get all of my talent (and lack thereof) from her. But the "why" with her is simple: the words overwhelm her. And just like with words, we often get the gestures and actions wrong, too. The knitted overcoat that does nothing to flatter the figure. Sending roses when the receiver likes lilacs. Unaccompanied meatloaf. We are imperfect. Black cats can attest to that, if we let them talk. I know, I had one. She was as much a gateway to other worlds as your words are, here.

[bob, small b. aka invs]

this struck me as funny because we just had new neighbors move in by us and a little inner voice began telling me it would be a nice neighborly thing to bring them cookies, cake, wine, something. the voice sounded strangely like my mother. i resisted, telling myself those things are anachronistic.
oh.. and i don't understand any of those things you asked either. so you're not the only one not getting the memos.

[Tom Q]

Just my dumb opinion but I always thought that those who want to maintain a life that ignores the bigger picture will go mad trying to answer the small questions that have no answer.

[Rick r]

Tongue in cheek, my a*s. That's my Mom your writing about, and I want to know, too! Absolutely like this much, muchacho.

[emmajoy]

' I'd like to know who decided it was so wrong ~ to take the last old chocolate in the box or why
it's biblical bad luck when a black cat walks by.. '

Love the surreal, tongue in the cheek wit of this. Unusual it is that, by the end i wanted to research every question you ask.. especially about that need to bake a pie! Maybe your mamma saw/sees food as a bandage, a kindness to the spirit! As to that statue - that stone-cold figure of considered love for the world protect that shabby bunch of residents?! Grief of grief, that makes me laugh aloud.. the creativeness of that area is oddly brilliant. Your mind flies, your writing flows.. will read more another time.. soon.

[Dane Osborne]

This is brilliant and beautiful work. You've always had such a gift for making everyday scenarios seem just as surreal and otherworldly as they probably really are. You have an original and authentic talent which is something that i've always picked up on when I started reading your stuff years back. Bravo and Kudos.100/100

[W.k.kortas]

Your profile may say you write like Frank Baum, but I find a touch of Pynchon here, along with a smattering of Burroughs (thankfully, you did not go to the places with body parts stuffed in walls where Burroughs would have not feared to tread.) The piece, after a brief and (formally speaking) pretty standard opening stanza, tumbles forward at full speed, with punctuation and pauses only where you see fit, like the questioning and confusion of a child (the date-stamping of the piece marking the narrator as a youngun) which plays off nicely against the first stanza, showing the format to be no accident. Likewise, the piece casts a wide net--maple syrup and sinners, life and death and meatloaf. If you just threw a casual glance at this, you could see it as something tossed together--but if one takes the time to read carefully, you can see the piece is built to be big as a house, big as the damn universe.