Feeding Time

Dad gave us permission to save some bread
from the basket. Always a special occasion
when we went to the Italian place at the edge of town.
Always on a Sunday night.

We folded pieces in paper napkins.
Watched the cigarette burn to my mother’s fingertips
and when she pressed the red butt hard into the ashtray
and the last of the red wine slipped down her throat

we knew we were on our way,
all six of us, crusts left on checkered tablecloths,
the patrons turning to look
at the child-storm leaving the building.

Did you know the pond still rests there?
The edges rough and mud-ridden.
They can’t be, of course, but they look like
the exact same ducks, black beaks and beady eyes.

My brothers rushed ahead, the late light
glazing the sides of tree trunks.
Metallic, sheen heads, incessant quacking
and scurrying done the web-footed way.

My sisters and I held the edge more carefully,
tossed more daintily. What freshness at the sight
of creatures so wild and wanting from us.
Our bellies full; we delighted in feeding them.

I did not want it to end.
The pushing past, the water-pecking,
the necks striking skyward to jolt a piece
down their throats. They’d take a finger off if we let them.

I flicked a piece as if it were a coin, as if to make a wish.
Here’s a stroke of luck, I said. I was a stage performer,
a child-goddess, a wild-human creature.
To them, I was all there was. I was legendary.