The Horses: New & Selected Poems

Elf Power

220 elF Power I sit at the kitchen table drubbing my mother with Silbergian laws Big yellow kitchen with two separate entrances curled at the end of the hall like the sun of the apartment Silbergian Law #68: How to eat chicken noodle soup: slurp out the soup put ketchup on the noodles Silbergian Law #83: Never mix leftover tomato soup with leftover bean soup My ukases are jokey but fanatic and my mother bustles under them As long as I don’t actually misbehave I’m her pantocratic little brain boy On safari through my mashed potatoes I’m advancing on my juicy hamburger Silbergian Law #3: Save the best for last I’m conquering my lunch bellowing Silbergian Law #14: All lunches end in chocolate pudding Kitchen-table-centric Granma’s two faces Shuffling in in the mornings without her false teeth collapsed hollow-cheeked goggling like the clock on the wall My proud sweet-faced rest of the day Granma preparing her eggplant and mamaliga charming her suitors in the park with her round rouged cheeks Daddy grinning home from work 221 smelling like cigarettes and snow We come joking and jerking down the hall pressing magic buttons in to dinner where we swim around the table each in his own plate Silbergian Law #2: The supreme meal is spaghetti but also baked beans Kitchen-table-ec-centric Fleering over my shoulder to the aircourt window centri-fugal It’s elf power God and Santa consubstantial “Who always knows” I’m blending with the elfin turbulent gray like wind with eyes beginning to formulate Silbergian Law #1: ...