April Is, After All, National Poetry Month

If only all men were as honest.


Oatmeal Deluxe
       --by Stephen Dobyns

This morning because the snow swirled deep around my house, I made oatmeal for breakfast. At first it was runny so I added more oatmeal, then it grew too thick so I added water. Soon I had a lot of oatmeal. The radio was playing Spanish music and I became passionate: soon I had four pots of oatmeal. I put them aside and started a new batch. Soon I had eight pots. When the oatmeal cooled, I began to roll it with my hands, making small shapes: pigs and souvenir ashtrays. Then I made a foot, then another, then a leg. Soon I’d made a woman out of oatmeal with freckles and a cute nose and hair made from brown sugar and naked except for a necklace of raisins. She was five feet long and when she grew harder I could move her arms and legs without them falling off. But I didn’t touch her much— she lay on the table—sometimes I’d touch her with a spoon, sometimes I’d lick her in places it wouldn’t show. She looks like you, although your hair is darker, but the smile is like yours, and the eyes, although hers are closed. You say: But what has this to do with me? And I should say: I want to make more women out of Cream of Wheat. But enough of such fantasy. You ask me why I don’t love you, why you can’t live with me. What can I tell you? If I can make a woman out of oatmeal, my friend, what trouble could I make for you, a woman?