Thanksgiving
- Thanksgiving
Growing up, I never saw any whitesonly bathrooms, never had paperbags pressed to my cheek. ButI had to find my dinner at the back doorof a hotel. I walked into a scene
from the kitchen of George Wallace’s heaven—blackbodies stuffed in sterling coats, heads down, hands dancingknives through onion and ox-tail.The smell of a million missing fathers.My father was somewhere
in that smell. And sometimes, his voicewould cut through the clatter,sometimes another tired voice called meover to a pan of chickenor the type of meatballs hipsters blog about
these days. My knees buckled once or twice;It was heavier than boneand grease and sauce. My brotherkept the car running by the dumpster, leftthe passenger’s side open so I could slide in
and we could make our getaway.We were back on the boulevardbefore a manager had a chance to noticea beat up Chevy on their lot,before we had a chance to look back. [End Page 8]
Jason McCall is an Alabama native. His collections include Dear Hero, (Marsh Hawk Press), Silver (Main Street Rag), I Can Explain (Finishing Line Press), and Mother, Less Child (Paper Nautilus). He and P.J. Williams are editors of the forthcoming anthology It Was Written: Poetry Inspired by Hip-Hop (Minor Arcana Press).
