Secrets Mrs. Capone made sausages On Saturdays I hung around a butcher shop Delivering meat on foot for tips And lunch – The highlight of my day They always looked the same, the sausages, Coming out of her machine With their pink translucent skins I never knew or asked about What went in She never told She served them warm and crisp On a quarter-loaf of bread They were delicious Even if business wasn’t good or She and Bernie, her husband, had a fight When she was happy I could have eaten my heart out All afternoon ________________________________________________________________________ Emanuel E. García, Leaf Thoughts, One Hundred Poems, 2013 |