is what he calls it as he cracks half a dozen eggs
in a skillet with last week’s fried potatoes,
a fistful of fresh spinach, kernels off an ear of corn.
But he’s craving meat again. Rummaging
through his parent’s refrigerator, he sees
last night’s flat iron steak, slices it diagonally,
adds more salt than necessary, just enough
pepper. He is thinking what else
when his mother arrives home from work.
Together they stare at the skillet. He stirs as if
memorizing some movement his arm will soon
make: lifting a Corona at the bar with old friends;
standing in his ocean-side bedroom
struggling to balance his father’s rifle in the air,
its barrel against his mouth.
He decides it needs nothing. Stirs.
His mother smiles, just glad to have him home.
Three years from now she will say I want
to spank him. She can’t imagine that
rifle going off, so she makes him a child again,
one who needs tough love to set him straight.
She is looking at the mess of leftovers in the pan,
him, sliding the skillet off the stove,
both of them surprised about the life they love
and how they got it all wrong.
