It's just poetry, it won't bite

The Potato


05.02.15 Posted in today's words by

Rita Budrionis was raised on the south side of Chicago where she received her first poetry rejection in fifth grade by Sister Ladisla, her teacher, who dismissed her mighty fine rhyming Halloween poem as plagiarism. Luckily, Rita’s mother believed her daughter. Now, as a grown-up, Rita has a psychologist day job, but at night she writes poetry and that novel she WILL finish, yes. Her most recent poem to appear here was O April (May 2011).

The Potato
By Rita Budrionis

Barrel chested spuds, jackets bursting with solanaceous pride,
stand guard in the broth of the fatherland’s memory,
sauerkraut hillocks at their flanks,
beefy broth seasoned with sharp dread of next winter’s famine.

Cracked fingernails glean
ice rows furrowed by winter’s cut.
A German farmer looks away,
tithes detritus
and allows refugees
one golden onion surprise.
Root vegetables roast
while children watch the frantic light show of war:
night barium beauty bullets and
red tracer phosphorescence.
They must keep moving.

In a shotgun kitchen of South Chicago
on California Avenue
a thick-legged mociute cooks.
Rivulets of sauerkraut
drip down white stubbled chins
enjoyed by two survivors of 50-year wars.
Soups cooked long with love for that toothless smile
and pride in this land of Runglish.
A delicacy of curdled necessity,
polka dots of beef fat circle a thick sour cream crown in sorrel soup.
A plate of white bulbas without peels, my darling, fat and proud.
My amber cognac chaser.
Our American dollar dreams nestle in a backyard hole
dug with a green spade from Ace.
We are safe from the gulag.

He throws chips to his squirrels
who dart through traffic to reach his side of the street.
Tiny claws pull and scratch brown wool fibers.
The black babushka, speckled with flowers and potato crumblets,
mourns limply on a hook by the door.
Reddened eyes drift back so far away.
Unrelenting grimace etched deep in his wrinkled skin
by the Siberian gusts that tore and desiccated his brothers and sisters.
He drinks vodka in their honor.
Russia inked her signature on his face and
grew long white hairs in his eyebrows
but he stands in line proudly.
Jacket-scraped, sanitized bulbas, frozen in surrender to those golden arches,
steamy strips, easy to mash with tender gums.
“Potyaytoaz pleez.”

 



3 Responses to “The Potato”

  1. Now you’ve made me hungry and I need to check my eyebrows; but hey, I like your poem.

  2. Sharon Poch says:

    Oh, how I LOVE this poem! Remarkable imagery, a flowing river of history and loss and redemption. Can’t wait for your next . . .

  3. Well done. You planted so many stories and made me want more.

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