We ate dinner with our heads down masticated silence Mom slathered hot sauce on everything including Dad’s words and the ones he didn’t say lips spraying consonants vowels dribbling down his chin i before e stuck on whiskers sporting stains in the armpits taco Tuesday and the shells were inverted hunchbacks with rice beans lettuce no meat because my sister bolted with the butcher one phone call later Mom was weeping Dad’s knife splitting the wall next to the cross Jesus’s suffering eyes Susie always was a troublemaker
