Sharon Lowe
On humid summer evenings in Richmond, Virginia, circa 1970
(if momma was cashiering at Safeway),
my daddy would open the front and back doors of our house,
and position a box fan in the kitchen before welcoming men
who were filled with piss, vinegar, and the cheapest beer available
to play penny-ante poker.
On the round kitchen table stood a jar of pickled pigs’ feet,
several cans of sardines in mustard sauce,
a large box of saltines,
spring onions arranged in a glass, like flowers,
and hot peppers from our garden, some dried, some fresh, some pickled.
A burlap bag of peanuts sat on the floor.
The food was both sustenance and the subject of additional contests,
revealing who could eat the hottest pepper or the most sardine crackers without a drink.
The beer and the sweat flowed freely.
From outside, black flies and mosquitoes
dive bombed the screen doors,
like kamikazes trying to break through enemy lines.
The radio blared Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings
as the men sang along boisterously, laughing and howling,
slapping their hands on their thighs and the table,
imagining themselves as outlaws placing their bets,
seeing and calling one another’s bluffs.
Crumpled beer cans and feather-like peanut shells
clattered and floated, respectively, to the linoleum floor.
I mostly stayed in my room, reading, wishing for quiet,
muttering and rolling my eyes,
dreaming of more refined pleasures and futures.
But when I finally went to the kitchen,
even I could recognize all the raw odors and noises
as their sacred “smells and bells.”
On that day, I learned every communion is holy.
