Lunch Pail Blues and the Hot Lunch Rag
kindergarten days carrying my
Batman lunch pail and
swinging it around and around,
its red exterior resembling
a fireball
only to find when I opened it
that the boy wonder thermos
had leaked Diet Pepsi
everywhere, my sandwich
light brown and soggy,
my chips evaporated;
I switched to hot lunch,
drank chocolate milk
from a tiny brown carton
and dined on hamburgers
drowning in the peach cobbler
that drifted from its
spot on my Styrofoam
tray—I ate it all:
this gave me the strength
to cover the bathroom
ceilings in spitballs
with kids who did
not speak the same
language as me.
Kevin Ridgeway is from Southern California, where he resides in a shady bungalow with his girlfriend and their one-eyed cat. Recent work has appeared in Zygote in my Coffee, The Blue Hour, Regardless of Authority and The Idiom. His latest chapbook of poems, All the Rage, is now available from Electric Windmill Press.
Been there, done that. Thanks.