I lie about eating.
Don’t eat that,
my wife says,
that’s not good for you,
you’ve had enough.
She asks,
What are you eating now?
Didn’t I ask you to stop?
and my mouth is full
or I just then took a large swallow
or grand food stains are on my face
and I tell her –
sometimes still chewing –
I’m not eating,
I haven’t touched anything,
I’m just smelling
or something like that
because the only time I lie
is when I’m lying about food.
| Copyright © 2019 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s latest volume of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else, was published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018. |
Love the humor and images created in this poem.
ReplyDeleteMe, too, and I am pleased that you seem to validate my own reading of humor in the relationship between the poet and his wife, and the implication that it is "just a joke" for him to say that he "lies about food," in the sense that it is only literally a lie (because what he says isn't literally true, but only jokingly, between husband and wife). I'm now wondering whether I need to go back and re-read all of Michael's other poems, to try to find similar humor, which I may have missed the first times I read them, because I was taking them "too seriously"....
DeleteIs competent reading of rich poetry aided by its being a community affair?
I would think so given interpretation is lent by experience and knowledge. Poetry is a great place to see how minds differ in thought processes.
Delete