...then the five of us cleaned the carcass.

My mother had given me
the free turkey she'd won
at the supermarket
since there was no room
for it in her freezer.

"Better to complain of having
too much food than too little,"
the youngest daughter of a young widowed
immigrant told me as she handed
me the twelve-pound bag.

"You want to deep-fry it this week?" I asked my roommate
upon arriving home, already knowing his answer.

When the night came we worked together--
he manned the bird submerged in hot oil outside;
I prepared the side dishes over the stove.
Out of combined courtesy and admitted ignorance
I let him carve the turkey while our dinner guests
sipped their cocktails on the porch in the dying sunlight.

"Here," he said, using the knife to point at a small hunk
of dark meat he'd set aside on the cutting board.
"Eat that. There're only two of them."

I complied, figuring he'd already sampled the first
of the pair.

"That's that little knob on the edge of the thigh
isn't it?" I asked.

"Yeah," he replied. His cold blue eyes
were like a shark's: they never changed
regardless of what his mouth was doing.

"When I was a kid I tried to explain that
part of a chicken to someone
and said that if I were ever rich
I'd have plates of them served to me for dinner."
I silently pondered the fact that even from
an early age that's what I'd been doing:
trying to get people to understand me.

The shark's mouth widened to show teeth
though they weren't menacing.
The eyes remained the same.

The juicy morsel melted
leaving me only to savor the swallow.
I finished setting the table and
went to the door to tell our company
that it was time to eat.

In years to come when I remember him
I hope I picture the two of us
standing in the kitchen
over that bountiful cutting board
having just shamelessly shared the best poultry parts
and as close to a moment in time
as we'd get.