It's Still Life

Meatballs and Fish Scales

Nothing’s more Italian than meatballs, Mum says.
She’s holding a salmon by the tail and scraping off
its scales. They’re spraying all over the place
like unravelling sequins.

Meatballs were invented by the Italians, she adds,
in that I know everything about everything tone —
and she’s hunched over the old butler’s sink,
which is a fancy name for a white porcelain sink.

It’s balanced on a wooden frame with fabric gathered
on its front to hide the pipework. Dad made the frame
from a few old apple crates, and the stencilled words
“Wenatchee Apple Company” still show up clear enough
to read, if you squint real hard, and your eyeballs
don’t tear up from the effort.

And Dad says, Or Frank Sinatra, which is a loose
reference about there’s nothing’s more Italian
than meatballs. And I’m supposed to be practising
my m-n-o-cursive writing, or connected writing
as they call it now, although most kids nowadays
are far more connected than we ever dreamt possible
during the early 1950s, and I say something like,

But, Dad, I thought Frank Sinatra is American,
and he pops me one up the back of the head and says,
We aren’t talking to you, kid – do your homework.
So I squint my eyes as if I’m trying to read the words
on the apple crate, tears welling up that I swear
won’t flood on my connected-up letters because

fountain pen ink runs like a river when it gets wet.
Ballpoint pens aren’t allowed in school because
Mrs Fume, my 4th grade teacher, says that they
ruin a child’s handwriting. And Dad says to Mom,

Is it necessary to spray damned fish scales
all over the kitchen like that? and she glares back,
as if to say, “yes, it is, you shit for brains”
but she doesn’t say that — she just glares.

And now the neighbour’s stroppy cat is looking
through the screen door – probably smells salmon
and thought its dinner was on the table. So Dad
hisses through his front teeth at it, scares it off.

And by the way, I say, meatballs are American.
And Dad pops me up the back of the head again,
and says, I suppose you’ll say spaghetti noodles
aren’t Italian either, eh? I don’t say a word.

written for Miz Quickly’s Day 18:A Whole Cloth and dVerse’s “Artisan’s“. Notes: Q’s the mechanics of it: Begin with a lie. At some point mention a specific date. Include one small animal and one large one (names will suffice). Before you finish, correct the lie in such a way that there’s doubt as to which version is true. Appeal to two of the senses. dVerse calls for a poem in the Style of Seamus Heaney.