A Note to My Future Husband:
*It will be on the dinner table.
“If you don’t learn to cook and clean, your husband will leave you” – Xiomara Urena
You exist in title only because of my family.
They mention you constantly.
They warn me about you like a church bell at noon, so
I have to learn the kitchen before you get home.
They lecture me on how you will leave me if I don’t do the dishes correctly or
learn to cook with flavor--
in my house, this means with a smile the entire time.
They say, I will wait for you with the children--
two because this is their way of making things “even”.
You will come home and your plate on the dining table will be ready.
My aunt tells me, men need pleasure, so I will wear your eyes like a nightgown
when it’s your time to go to bed and I am done folding
your delicates, of course.
If not, he will smell like black coffee in the morning
and you will always know
because at home, he drinks his with milk.
She reminds me, the kitchen and the bedroom
are the most important places in the house.
“A woman should know her habitat.”
I should learn how to make the bed and always sleep on the left side.
I will have two jobs:
maintaining my waist small like the handle of a tea pot and
nodding at everything you say, and
“Yes, you will be the man of the house”.
We can find Mary Anne at the nearest train station dancing to West African music. She does not speak English most of the time. She attends Oneonta State College in a small town overwhelmed by deer. She believes in walking forward. Backwards does not work. She is currently working on her digestion problems.
*It will be on the dinner table.
“If you don’t learn to cook and clean, your husband will leave you” – Xiomara Urena
You exist in title only because of my family.
They mention you constantly.
They warn me about you like a church bell at noon, so
I have to learn the kitchen before you get home.
They lecture me on how you will leave me if I don’t do the dishes correctly or
learn to cook with flavor--
in my house, this means with a smile the entire time.
They say, I will wait for you with the children--
two because this is their way of making things “even”.
You will come home and your plate on the dining table will be ready.
My aunt tells me, men need pleasure, so I will wear your eyes like a nightgown
when it’s your time to go to bed and I am done folding
your delicates, of course.
If not, he will smell like black coffee in the morning
and you will always know
because at home, he drinks his with milk.
She reminds me, the kitchen and the bedroom
are the most important places in the house.
“A woman should know her habitat.”
I should learn how to make the bed and always sleep on the left side.
I will have two jobs:
maintaining my waist small like the handle of a tea pot and
nodding at everything you say, and
“Yes, you will be the man of the house”.
We can find Mary Anne at the nearest train station dancing to West African music. She does not speak English most of the time. She attends Oneonta State College in a small town overwhelmed by deer. She believes in walking forward. Backwards does not work. She is currently working on her digestion problems.
