Fish Sticks

A journal of my far away heart...

For many of us the language ‘childhood’ is an alphabet of singular memories and the humming of ever singing voices. The songs of the highway, the truck going by. The world was quieter then, I could hear far away whine of engines approaching… A future warning, I am coming. And then…the Doppler of the trucks as time went by. When the day is too long or the night is too empty, I remember the way it felt to have a mother. I felt safe—no, I felt whole when I was sure she was listening to me.  

“Listen mother,” I pull at her hem.

“You’ve got to stop your pleading,” Lowell answers.  

Songs and lyrics are always near me, finishing my sentences and starting new ones of their own. Without them I would be like Helen Keller I suspect, searching for something I once knew was there but cannot remember well enough to even imagine. And even with the songs to explain me, introduce me, I see people rearranging my words into an order they can understand…I guess. “She says she is late,” or “she wants to know where the ginger ale is.” It is as if the very sound of my voice confounds them sometimes. Or is it looking at my face as I speak? Perhaps I will never know.  

Ginger ale. Remember those cake rolls? My daddy would bring them home sometimes when we first moved to the desert. They reminded him of the big city, back in Chicago. Who knows, maybe his dad bought them. I loved the shape of the spiral but was never sure about the taste of the cake. It is the shape of a thing, song or spirit, that draws me near. Some people have spirits that rise like giant squid in prehistoric waters. So warm and remembering.  

Fish sticks were the Friday food in Phoenix. Since Catholics were instructed to not eat meat on Friday, the schools all served fish sticks. If you have never had a fish stick, it’s a // rectangle of fried fish. Not a fish cake. It’s just fish with breading, and it’s cut into a shape that’s fun to dip into your tartar sauce. Kids will eat them. No one actually made fish sticks at home, they were purchased in the frozen food section and probably baked on a baking sheet. The French fries made them tolerable. 

Since there are no fish in the desert, really, fish sticks are an elegant solution to deficiency. Unless you want to eat one of your daddy’s trouts and die choking on a bone, you laugh about fish sticks.  

When I was little, Mother kept an eye out the back kitchen window. What was she watching for? Nights were longer in that quiet world, and the air was filled with fireflies.   My lover Rain came sudden and left sooner, leaving trails of smoke that would still be growing off the sidewalk, except they died like mushrooms when the sun hit them.  My lover, Rain, came sudden. I smell him still. 

I wonder if that song “Coming Back to Me” was playing in Mother’s head as she stood there by the red radio holding a Winston in her hand. “We need milk for coffee.”

“Small things like reasons are put in a jar.” Why is life so crooked, you ask? Misshapen spirits whose trees won’t stop growing.  Look at us. Everyone has a broken heart.    

Substack will be my priest sometimes. I shall confess in poems the things I don’t like to tell anyone else. Bless me, Substack, and be on your way. I will celebrate and collaborate, with photographs, for that is the picture I see, I am in awe every day of the fact that I see things no one else will ever see. Like that lady bug over there. Or the lizard and its red throat, I am the only one watching. Well, the only human. I think my brother crow has his eye on her, too.  

Witness, be a witness to life. Be an advocate, be a shepherd and for God’s sake, be a  volunteer. I am calling today to ask about volunteering for Critical Cuddling, holding the tiny newborn infants who need to be held. I get some baby-holding, and a baby gets to feel a human heart sing “come on, fly straight to my arms, oh little angel child.” 

I’ll hum a song, you know I will. I am trying to save a donkey I saw in Mississippi. Well, maybe we will succeed. There is so much left to know.