Poems by Dee Allen

WRITING EXERCISE “Here's your writing exercise. For your homework. Write about any anxiety you're feeling.” Any anxiety? I can think of one. Homelessness is my anxiety. To be forced to leave my steady 4 walls & a roof. To meet the street and travel on both feet until sore seeking some shelter and securing none. To be reduced to begging another man for money or food or a bottle of water to live. To stand in front of one place and learn to master the simple art of waiting for a plate of dinner or bed for the night—in a long, long lingering line of heads there for the same reason. To have the meaning of my life pared down to one phrase: Street survival. To be refused anything on sight, including the necessity of a shower. To have nowhere to store my belongings but my back-pack and suitcase. To have more blisters on my feet than housing leads. To be called “a bum”—among other damaging names—for attempting to survive in a city. To take a night's rest in a park inside my sleeping-bag, nothing under me but the ground, nothing above me but a ceiling of starry black. As one with nature. Done when I couldn't find an abandoned building or house construction site to squat. To be seen with eyes other than mine as no longer part of the human race—on the grounds of having no home. To know no safety or dignity—in a public shelter or on cold, merciless streets. I've lived like that 8 times before in San Francisco. The anxiety's most strongest when I dread of this situation happening to me again. W: 12.10.25 REV: 5.13.26 CACCIATORÉ 1980: Age 12: I saw a recipe for what eventually Became my most favoured dish Chicken cacciatoré Found within those Older women's magazines Woman's Day, Family Circle—one of the two— Aunt Freda would read from time to time For her dinner main course & dessert ideas. One night, I begged Aunt Freda, Practically on both bent knees on linoleum, To make chicken cacciatoré for dinner. It was either this or throw down on Bone-dry lima beans & sticky ham-hocks again. Uncle Walter loved those more. Fried mackerel cakes, a close second. One night, Aunt Freda made chicken cacciatoré from scratch. Something about the other ingredients aroused taste-buds more familiar with Fried chicken, collard greens, black-eyed peas and corn muffins. They hooked me immediately, by the forkfull: Tomato, basil, rosemary, bell peppers, eggplant chunks Sent me to a place that wasn't like America. I no longer subcribe to chewing On dead hens' flesh. Vegan—my current path & creed. I have too much respect for animals. Eating chicken cacciatoré enabled in young me A connection to family roots Inherited from the father I never knew. Southern Europe, Mediterranean Sea, That Italian part of me in a magnificent dinner. W: 7.28.24 [ For Leya Hunter. ]