Why I Sang at Dinner
Rent from DeepDyve- Why I Sang at Dinner
I was not permitted a word at dinnerbecause you were too hot from layingbrick in the sun to bear the voicesof children, and mother too tiredto oppose you. My sister and brother,five and six years older, had graduatedin allowance to one sentenceand on your good days two.Sometimes I ventured a phrasebut you pushed me down quick."You no speak. You have no responsibility."The r in responsibility you would hitwith a rough Portuguese trill.Your own father used to beat youwith a rope until you bled.You vowed never to repeat this.You had no need.
Still, I wanted to loosen the knotbetween your brows and finda soft place within you.I watched how playing your accordionfor hours into the night soothed you.Above the keys in gleaming silvercursive was written Excelsior.Since the accordion weighed too muchto pick up I began to sing—often in the middle of dinner.Slenderly, I quavered out tunesyou liked from Lawrence Welk.Sometimes I just sang Excelsior.No one said anything. [End Page 59]
How could they?I continued without looking up.You neither stopped me nor softened.One evening when I was thirteen I gave up.My new male voice was starting to break inand I couldn't care anymore.
Roberto Christiano's poetry has been featured in Gávea-Brown: A Bilingual Journal of Portuguese-American Letters, the Hiram Review, the Sow's Ear, and Red River Review. Two of his plays were produced at the Source Theatre in Washington DC. He also coscripted the film Flowers from Albert, which aired on Metrovision cable.
