Bob Lucky

Another Slice

after Joe Brainard

picking green beans
with my grandparents
summer heat
the iced tea never cold
or sweet enough

I remember sweating while cranking the ice cream maker in my grandparents’ backyard and licking peach ice cream off the dasher.

I remember eating raw cookie dough while my mother was baking chocolate chip cookies.

I remember loving the smell of vanilla extract and wanting to drink it. Not anymore.

I remember my cousin and I sneaking some Ex-Lax out of my grandparents’ refrigerator thinking it was chocolate and having to go to the hospital to get our stomachs pumped.

I remember playing football in the backyard and knocking over the grill. My uncle took the half-cooked chickens into the house and washed them off while my father lit more coals and fumed.

I remember not liking rice and my aunt refusing to let me leave the table until I had finished what was on my plate. Two hours later I realized I did like rice with butter and black pepper.

I remember buttermilk pie so sweet my teeth ached but I had another slice anyway.

an old recipe
in my grandmother’s hand
… taking
the measurements
with a grain of salt

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About the Author

Bob Lucky is the author most recently of My Thology: Not Always True But Always Truth (Cyberwit, 2019) and the chapbook Conversation Starters in a Language No One Speaks (SurVision Books, 2018), which was a winner of the James Tate Poetry Prize in 2018. Lucky lives in Portugal, where he is working his way through all the regional cheeses and wines.

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