May

daddy arrived home late Friday night from his week long
business trip
we kids were in bed sleeping when he came home

but early saturday morning mama would be busy in the
kitchen making daddy that big morning breakfast

she always started by going to the market early in
the morning before we kids were up.
she would come home with flowers, a dozen oranges, some
apples, grapefruit and tangerines.

she used to call daddy the fruit man and then she would let
out a low chuckle as if she had just told herself a joke

anyway
us kids would wake saturday morning and find our way
to the kitchen
and there would be mama
slicing firm round oranges into havles and
putting them onto the juicer to squeeze out
that fresh orange juice
she said that was the way daddy liked his juice.
it was the real thing
he was a real man
nothing out of those cardboard containers
that some of the women were buying these days.


daddy always got the tall glass with abraham lincoln's picture on it
which mama had gotten a set of six tall glasses from going to the movies
on friday nights.
each of the six glasses had a past president of the united states on it.

the month before it had been round white dishes with a rose edge
that kept the housewives coming to the movies
it seemed that all our dishes and even our silverware
came from going to the theater

that was because in the day the movies used to give out
dishware if you frequented their establishment often enough
so all the housewives would go to the movies on friday night
and soon everyone on the block had the same exact set of
dishware in their kitchen.

it made for familiarity
and we kids came to accept the sameness of the situation

a nice boquet of yellow mums sat on the kitchen table
in the only glass vase that we had in the house
it had been given to us by mama's sister Sherrie
on some sort of anniversary

and there was a round white bowl with cherries painted on it
sitting in the middle of the table.

it was crowded with apples, tangerines and bananas.

each of us three kids entered the warm kitchen and took a fruit
mine was a bananna and then we would sit
around the table waiting for the signal to begin eating.

that moment would come in a few seconds when papa entered
the kitchen

he was a big man
six foot three
and his frame was husky
he was 42 and in good physical shape
he looked like the ironman from tv which was a show
that us kids used to watch all of the time

the show was about a giant who had powers of strength
and everybody was always after him to solve a situation
or prevent a catastrophy from happening

you know something in the order of save the world thing

papa always walked into the kitchen
with a wide step
he would turn and see if we were looking
and if we weren't
he would give mama a smack on her buttocks

of course we were looking
but he made believe we weren't
and he would wink in our direction
and
so that made it all right

mama always said, "Matt, the children."

daddy would look back in our direction
shake his head and wink again and then he
would say,

"What children?"

"Matt, stop."

"Okay then, mama, let's eat."

and that's how our day began
with fruit and with mama and papa in
our warm big kitchen.