My Family

We’re at a Cuban restaurant on North Avenue
my mom is staring at the plantains and commenting
on how much they look like little potato pancakes
and my dad is telling the owner why she needs to charge
a corkage fee so he can bring his own wine
and my brother’s telling me I need to clean my glasses
and we get into an argument about the Hawaiian Punch guy
and my family’s laughing at me cus I remembered him
having antlers on his head and my dad goes “no it was a
porkpie hat” and then my mom and dad start complaining about
my brother needing to find an apartment on campus in
time “I’m gonna say this once and then let it go…”
which my dad says with everything he complains about
repeatedly and then my mom starts in on how she
can’t believe my aunt and uncle took a trip to
Tokyo for a friend’s wedding my aunt and uncle
who have a mansion in Glenview and another somewhere
in Colorado and my dad says “because they can”
and my mom says “but I just don’t get it. I would
never go to an employee’s wedding in Tokyo” and my
dad says “well they’re friends” and my mom goes
“well I still don’t get it” and my dad goes “well I
guess that’s just one of life’s great mysteries”
but my mom says she still doesn’t get it
and my dad closes his eyes and breathes deeply
and we go and my mom makes my brother
straighten the blinds each one individually so they’re
all perfectly even and I ask “why is she making you
do that?” and my brother goes “because she’s fucking crazy”
and my dad makes my brother and I haul a hundred-pound
disassembled wine rack downstairs and he’s too tired to
take me home so my brother takes me home and we talk
the whole ride there about poker and getting laid
in college and he drops me off I go in crack open
a bottle of whiskey take a stiff shot and write this poem

© 2008 Lee Kitzis

To a Woman

I

We’ll drive a Volvo
to Buckingham Fountain

drink rose
and eat cheese made by monks
that killed themselves over 200 years ago

while dogs bark
and your nipples soften

There will be fireworks
for some reason

mostly bottle rockets
kids are launching at us

I will read Donne

and you will say
who’s Donne?
and give me a relationship quiz

I will get a 95
and masturbate later that night
feeling proud that we were so compatible

II

I will wait two days
and then call you

I will leave a message
and make my voice sound deep
like a 95

It will involve me laughing nervously
and talking about deep-dish pizza

It will last three minutes

half-way through
I will forget to keep my voice deep
and sound like a nasally Jew

I will analyze the message in my head
over and over

I will get three new gray hairs

You will drink mojitos

and masturbate
later that night
thinking of Skeet Ulrich
for some reason

III

Five days pass
and I will erase your number from my phone

You will decide to try myspace
and meet a fifth-level Palladin warlord

he will beat my score
and ask you to move into his studio in Pilsen

You will make wine together

and smoke Camel wide-filters

You will have a cat named Charlie Parker

and a dog named Shit-head

and life will be grand

in a point system

out of 500

© 2008 Lee Kitzis