Never on Friday

It was only one day a week
but
I hated going home
to that odor.
I swear you could smell the
Muggine in Bianco
or the
Baccala
from the school yard.
I never understood the tradition.
I wanted meat—
big fat burgers with
greasy French fries.
Sometimes my mother would put the
Cioppino
in front of me
and I would cry
for meat
like a cannibal.
I craved the taste of the
flesh
and I would eat behind their backs
at the basketball game
or the pep rally
like a heathen,
but they never knew.
It wasn’t the only commandment I broke
on Fridays.
While they ate my grandmother’s Patate e Tonno
I forgot my religion,
ignored the rules
and pretended ignorance of our
pope.
Now, when my children question
the tradition of fish
I tell them,
It is only one day a week for you.