The Steakhouse

“Fork in the left, knife in the right�"like the English do,”

says Grandma as I saw at my chicken fried steak,

gravy tumbling down my chin.

I scan the room and its Old West trappings�"

depictions of high desert landscapes and sepia photographs

of a farmer reining a plow horse, a gunfighter, an Navajo woman abusing a dusty rug.

Between the frames hang a pair of baling hooks dark and textured with rust,

and a long scythe, its fissured haft grayed by time and sun.

Elsewhere, a horse collar hangs in the sights of an oxidized Henry.

I conjure images of cowboys and Indians, Forty-niners and frontier farmers

sitting, skewering chicken fried steak and shoveling mashed potatoes.

They handle their forks with their right hands.

The cowboy sits by his hung-up spurs and the Indian by his bow.

I sit in this place with its prairie schooner salad bar and soft serve ice cream machine,

an atmosphere of recommissioned relics and replicas of times past.

I reply:

“But I’m American, Gramma.”