American Cheese - Katy Estes

American Cheese

Jim Daniels

At department parties, I eat cheeses
my parents never heard of—gooey
pale cheeses speaking garbled tongues.
I have acquired a taste, yes, and that's
okay, I tell myself. I grew up in a house
shaded by the factory's clank and clamor.
A house built like a square of sixty-four
American Singles, the ones my mother made lunches
With—for the hungry man who disappeared
into that factory, and five hungry kids.
American Singles. Yellow mustard. Day-old
Wonder Bread. Not even Swiss, with its mysterious
holes. We were sparrows and starlings
still learning how the blue jay stole our eggs,
our nest eggs. Sixty-four Singles wrapped in wax—
dig your nails in to separate them.

When I come home, I crave—more than any home
cooking—those thin slices in the fridge. I fold
one in half, drop it in my mouth. My mother
can't understand. Doesn't remember me
being a cheese eater, plain like that.

http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/028.html

This poem speaks to me on a child-like level. The speaker of this poem is obviously yearning for his childhood years in which eating a slice of American cheese, or perhaps a cheese sandwich, was an everyday occurrence. He begins the poem saying that he has acquired a new tongue- and that's okay. But the fact that he has to reassure himself that this is okay pushes the idea that maybe he isn't 100% okay with acquiring taste for these fancy cheeses. He misses the simplicity and "home-y" feeling of American cheese. American cheese represents his family and his childhood and his home. Eating a slice of American cheese is like being able to see old photos for him. He can remember his school lunches as a kid, his dad's lunches as he worked in the factory, and maybe he doesn't feel so lost in his new world with a "new tongue." He repeatedly mentions the "sixty-four singles wrapped in wax" as if describing both the cheese and his house, which enforces the idea that he not only wants to revisit the cheese but also his family. I feel like most people can or will be able to relate to this poem in the future. There's sometimes items or foods that we bond to so closely with our families that we don't realize how much we miss before we're gone.