scenes from a protestant childhood



i finally figured it out; i’m screwed up 
from oatmeal overdose as a child. porridge.
maternal propaganda ­
breakfast is the most important meal of the day ­
why? why is breakfast the most, etc.? 
that’s why i’ve never truly
grasped beauty in the keatsian sense. it was exposure 
to excessive ugliness ­
 porridge ­ slagheap of grey, late-winter 
snow no amount of sugar
could save. 

then there was the morality of it, the soldiering on, a la pilgrim’s progress.

i’d heard stories ­ some pilgrims had 
pretty nice mornings: tender, green things, kiwis, mouthfuls
of spring. white linen. on our very road, cereal that chatted
back from its
white pool

& yes, I often succumbed
to envy, scowling in the farmhouse
over my chipped bowl, ignorant 
of love’s lumpy shapes, its way 
of swamping the pure heft of itself deep
inside your gut.