How to Live on 20 Dollars a Week

I’ve stopped keeping track of my finances

I’ll know I’m fucked if I get a letter from the gas company

They’ve cut back on my work hours

and I’m 90% sure my bank account’s overdrawn

so I’ve been doing nothing but eating bread and beans
and watching the blonde joggers w/ big asses

a delicious cup of three-dollar vacuum-packed faux-Cuban coffee (about a pound)
and I feel sorry for the people that don’t know the pleasures in being broke

My mom worries and tries to set me up

Jewish
Italian
it doesn’t matter

I tell her not to
she nods and does it anyway

Sprouts are good
just 1 dollar for a pound

Borscht too
50 cents for a baseball-sized beet
1.50 for the loaf of bread to dip it in

Beans especially
80 cents a can
1 dollar for tortillas

Meat
¼ pound thin cheap steak strips for 1.30

A man can eat well on 20 dollars a week if he applies himself

I watch the Mexican father
(of at least two I’ve seen)
across the way
lean his arm out the window of his modest brick home
about the size of two garages
he’s holding a cigarette
he is tired
as most Mexicans are
since we make them do all the work
and then complain about it

it is a beautiful day
he doesn’t give a shit about the sun

a good porterhouse crosses my mind

but I will finely dice my steak strips
add them to my brown beans
and use one slice of sourdough for dipping

and I will forget about it

like I’ll forget about the blonde joggers w/ big asses

even though I want them
like I want a steak

His cigarette’s finished
he closes the window

it’s time for his dinner too

and we both feel sorry
for the people that don’t know the pleasures in being broke

© 2008 Lee Kitzis