I’m from dinner table stories
Of good ol’ Italian Brooklyn boys.
Neighborhood stickball games turned to quarries.
Yankees, Nathan’s Hot Dogs, carnivals; their summer joys.
The nuns with long rulers, yard sticks perhaps,
Reprimanded their tricks with a small, swift smack.
Mushrooms with dinner, but if they ever ate them last,
Grandpa knew better, they got mushrooms for breakfast.
Ferris wheel worker, cotton candy machine,
Got their tattoos at seventeen and eighteen.
I’m from dinner table stories
Of grungy boys turned gentlemen, young girls turned women.
Harley-driving guys and horse-back riding ladies.
Las Vegas, Bahamas, Illinois; each one, a road’s bend.
Drag races, walks down Fremont; and when Mom was four,
Moved to Bahamas, eighteen months they adored.
But Grandpa could never sit comfortably,
Off to Illinois, the only Easter grass factory.
And finally they returned to Vegas, the Southwest.
My parents first meeting place; that adventure, the best.
I’m from dinner table stories
Of laughs, cries, giggles, and sighs.
All become unforgettable memories
To tell the young kids that will be mine.
Sunday pasta, with tales of old pleasures.
They’ll know of many generations’ adventures.
And one day, when my time is up,
It’ll be their turn to finish them up.
I’m from dinner table stories.
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