Second Helpings
by Meri Culp
No man will take a second look
if you scarf down second helpings,
my mother warns, handing off the carving knife to Dad:
I am twelve, a kind of sleeping beauty girl,
the kind still feeding on spun sugar, summer dreams;
my sticky fingerprints, unheeding the handwriting on the wall,
tablecloth graze, shadow catch the gravy bowl handle,
pour a defiant pool, a stream of hunger
for love at first sight, the perfectly mounded
scoop-up of mashed potatoes, my plate,
a sharp glance away from mother omens,
from men who look once, then fall away.
Meri Culp has been published in various journals, including Grist (forthcoming), Saw Palm (forthcoming), Nashville Review, Espresso Ink, About Place, Cider Press Review, Off the Coast, Southeast Review, Apalachee Review, BOMB, Painted Bride Quarterly, Rose & Thorn, Nomads, Snug, and Sweet: A Literary Confection. Her poems have also appeared online in True/Slant, Poets for Living Waters, and USA Today and in the anthologies The Gulf Stream: Poems of the Gulf Coast, North of Wakulla, Think: Poems for Aretha Franklin’s Inauguration Day Hat, and All of Us: Poems from our First Five Years. She was also a finalist in the 2013 Peter Meinke Poetry Competition and the 2014 Crab Orchard Open Series in Poetry Competition and 2014 Crab Orchard First Book Award Competition for her collection, Cayenne Warning.
1 Comment
I love this poem. Culp has a way with the unexpected detail–“the shadow catch” of “the gravy bowl handle.” The scene at the table is drawn so delicately–mother, father, knife, tablecloth–and yet the gravity of the comment about “second helpings”-one many women believed–adds so much weight. Love it.