And after grandma threatens to beat us with the steam mop if we keep playin’ in front of her TV, me and the cousins go out back,Watch the tri-rail barrel past, waving at the cargo in black train cars speedin’ down the way while auntie what’s-her-name hollers for us to stay away from them tracks,
All of us are sticky with overripe mango from the tree on the corner, pointing fingers at granddaddy’s avocado tree hanging over the rust blue truck nobody ever seen move from where it’s restin’,
And for your information, it’s only one slice of rum poundcake left on the dinner platter at the table, sitting atop white lace all the kids were afraid of staining, so the cousins play UNO for it,
It’s going to be a fight regardless, so I cheat on the shuffle and end up with three +4’s and a couple skips too—can’t nobody accuse me of nothin’ since some of us sittin’ on cards and the others peeking at people’s hands,
The sunshowers you can see about three miles down, headed over from the beach, and one of the great aunts goes runnin’ back in ‘fraid of what the rain will do to her blow out,
It’s a grand old family get together, and somebody’s mama is yellin’ for them to get out of the grass before they stain their pants, so all of us get up on our feet,
Get to throwin’ our cards down on plastic lawn chairs and talkin’ the only kind of trash that we know how, somebody wishes an avocado down on my head and I say I can make it a promise,
Grandma got the picture book out in her favorite chair, and since the windows are open we can see the back of the heads all packed on the couch, everyone lookin’ over yellow-orange polaroids and talkin’ about “back in the day,”
‘cause somebody’s dead and somebody’s on their way, and granddaddy is holed up in the back room, and auntie is sick of cooking and wants somebody to come take over, while uncle brings in the fresh fried fish and a play-cousin asks if he was even watching us cousins while he was frying up dinner,
I make a dare that we could steal away the boat out front and get it down to the coast line, sail back three decades and be our mama’s best friends, and my baby cousin who’s three years older than he should be says that he got five dollars that I can’t
and five dollars is really like a hundred candies from the candy machine at the mall if you think about it, so I’m ready to climb up behind the wheel—course, I would have to go through the family in the house first and somebody’s going to yell about comin’ in and out the house so we agree to time travel another day,
They say that “way back when” the days were longer and the people were smarter—or maybe just quieter, but it makes no difference. Mama’s got an old Samsung and my big cousin can’t connect to the Wi-Fi so we take the photos and promise to send ‘em later.
Besides, there’s cornbread in the cast iron swimming in enough butter to stop up somebody’s heart, and collard greens in the old school pressure cooker that gives people burns if you ain’t careful.
When auntie what’s-her-name yells it’s time for eatin’ we still mid game, so we start throwin’ down anything we got cause the cake’s gonna be one of ours one way or another,
and after we eat, while the adults are tilted back in the oversoft couches, still talkin’ about everybody and anybody they ever loved or hated, the cousins are going to head to the backroom and get all dressed up in grandma’s church hats and chunky jewelry and call it a fashion show,
I’m throwin down my last +4, ‘bout to win the whole thing on a lie, when the camera clicks from the screen door; the family is yellin’ about how losing ain’t fair
I turn back to look, but I’m not quick enough to see who it is–just catch the screen door slammin’ shut, rusted orange at the hinge.
