Government Cheese
I come from a long line of loud dressers, masters of
second-hand cool reinvention in paisley shirts,
checked sweaters, and striped pants.
So if it’s true that we, my family and I, weren’t poor
it’s in the same way that later I wasn’t homeless.
It’s a matter of surface attention, directed awareness.
I slipped between friendly couches, a queer kid
without a home. I learned denial like that
from Mom. She emptied illusions in her free time:
poured samples into larger shampoo bottles, softened
soap shavings with water into batches of liquid
cleanser to rinse away the hidden poverty.
I knew who I was, backpack slung over one arm
clomping out of the house. We were two versions of a story
that end the same. Even apart, I am half of her.
I learned to need less, become my own brand.
Part of what we are is accident, luck. The other, creativity.
To have enough, we practiced frugality:
laughed at the gooey, artery clogging, bright yellow brick
we nibbled with crackers. Maybe ironically,
but we ate it.
originally Published in Lavender Review, issue 8 (December, 2013); republished in Lavender Review: Poems from the First Five Years (2015)