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Louisiana Anthology

Rain Prud’homme-Cranford Goméz.
“Cooking Chaos.”

© Rain P. C. Goméz
Used by permission.
All rights reserved.


Chicken bones and red clay

Turkey feather and macaw fans rattler hair ties

Busted window taped closed with duct tape

Sister jutting lips at mother’s crooked fingers

We take laundry from her hands

Folding underwear that lost elastic the

Same way our faces loose their tightness

In the everyday use of holding us up and in —


Chicken bones boiling in the pot

Turnip greens washed and cut

Smoke rising pungent hickory

From a water heater turned smoker

Under dad’s heavy welder recycling hands


Children crossing borders

Residential school scars passed

From Papa to Mother and Aunt

To Sister and me

Fear of white sheets

Fluttering in the wind

Can’t say Black

Creole is better

French is better than that

Indian just is reality

The problem with

Louisiana geography


Cooking amidst chaos

Chicken bones and red clay



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Source

Goméz, Rain Prud’homme-Cranford. “Cooking Chaos.” Smoked Mullet Cornbread Crawdad Memory. Norman, OK: Montgrel Empire Pr., 2012. Print. Copyright © 2015 by Rain P. C. Goméz. Used by permission. All rights reserved.


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