Pizza Poem
Are you hungry for pizza?
My Uncle Verlin was forty years my senior.
When questioned about his ethnicity he would respond,
"Mostly Sioux Indian, part German, and
when it comes to the drink,
full blooded Irishman."
Uncle Verlin lived to be an old man,
raised on a ranch,
on a South Dakota reservation,
by my grandparents.
Uncle Verlin was a true cowboy Indian,
living out his life like the songs
Hank Williams Senior and Woody Guthry
lamented about.
Drifting, drinking, leaving a trail of
half a dozen pissed off ex-wives, and
children claimed, and unclaimed,
along the path of his life.
One night Uncle Verlin and I
polished off a fifth of whiskey.
Hungry, we decided on pizza.
He had seen the TV commercials for Pizza Hut, and
wanted to eat at one
for the very first time.
Upon our arrival, a teenage white boy asked us,
from behind the counter,
what we wanted to order.
"The biggest pizza you have, with a lot of extra cheese,"
Uncle Verlin said.
The white kid asked what he wanted for toppings.
Uncle Verlin responded, "Tiny little white men."
The kid behind the counter looked bewildered, asking "Whaaat?"
"Tiny, tiny little white men on my pizza."
"Uh, sir, we don't have that topping. Would you want a different topping?"
"No! I want only tiny, tiny little white men on my pizza."
The white boy behind the counter now looked shit-scared.
After that, Uncle Verlin and I lost it. We laughed and laughed
all the way home,
carrying our pizza,
with Italian sausage topping.
After all, Columbus was Italian.
We thought it the next best choice
for a pizza topping.
© Luke Warmwater, 2008
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