eat well

I

farm-to-table,

mind-to-mind.

soft pink-gray sits squishy on the plate,

rests on a bed of cabbage splayed like rose petals,

like a sacrifice on the altar.

cold and fresh,

sterile and flavorless.

tap a slotted spoon on the ceramic,

chink chink chink,

while burning red roils rough.

carefully scoop,

carelessly drop.

organs disappear into a crimson mass,

soft loops stuck together,

clinging desperately through the hydraulics.

II

bovine spongiform encephalopathy,

mad cow disease.

proteinaceous infectious particles

unfold the loops condescendingly,

silly things getting in their own way.

holes like children’s fingers in play-doh

peppering the surface of the moon.

one hole over spells the end of it all.

gone gone gone

play battleship with statistics.

launch the rover like a lance.

cut softly and sweetly.

probe enough and then a little too much.

shift in an uncomfortable seat.

keep talking or everyone explodes.

keep talking or everyone explodes.

keep talking?

III

i talked a lot in middle school but never when asked.

i drank v8.

i craved and craved and craved some more.

i thought about the tang of metal…

tomato puree in aluminum cans.

my first period.

shame and shame and more shame.

i thought about the sick-sweetness of blood…

i kept losing pieces of myself and it made me sick.

if i drank more maybe i could fill me back up.

scraping mortar over bricks.

bitter, hard work.

labor: exertion: exits: escape.

relish…

to be pleased or gratified by.

to eat or drink with pleasure.

to appreciate with taste and discernment.

to eat or drink with pleasure.

IV

there are few greater pleasures than reading a crisp menu.

hors d’œuvre

soup

appetizer

salad

entrée

dessert

until one picks apart a lamb chop cooked inadequately

still cold and purple-blue in the center,

leaking red on lifeless ceramic sitting apathetically.

salted and peppered to perfection

one hardly avoids the temptation to toast some good bread

golden-crusted and roughly-crumbed.

a careful serrated cut sprays semolina akimbo,

granules pinked on the plate into wet sand.

sop it messily, greedily, madly,

through the red.

eat one’s fill.

V

to crave is to ask, to implore, to demand by right.

the body screams to be satisfied.

partake, partake, partake.

one eats bitterness because one must, with

gritted teeth and spasming esophagus.

bitterness is good for the soul.

one wishes for the delicious.

wouldst thou like to live deliciously?

VI

i chew my lip until it bleeds and

when i remember the sweetness of bad lamb chops,

i lick my wounds.

VII

split through my sinews cleanly with a

shiny new scalpel,

i won’t mind.

skin strips away so easily under a fresh cold knife,

falling softly and silkily.

lay my organs out nice and neat.

a good chef keeps their mise en place

row by row, dish by dish.

there is time to indulge later.