(in memoriam B.S. Johnson, 1933-1973)
White platter, garnished labial with fronds of wild mint,
trenched with stippled bream, misting still, fins smoked
to black perfection, the piggly-wiggly snouts
like carnelian buttons, the tails slim as cigarette twists,
each one terminating in a trio of glass-green grapes.
A sack of oats and apples for the horse, stale bread,
vitamins, and liquid stimulant for the rider. However much
one loves, it would be unseemly to gorge one’s way
from this crime scene to the next.
Like spreading a picnic blanket in the aftermath of massacre,
settling in for a six-course while the floor-boards creak
above some fresh jumble of bones.
It’s been seen to happen and so perhaps the nicety
of a decorous tone of voice or stepping lightly through grief-
stricken rooms is simply hypocrisy at its most virtuous.
Rather than a matter of appetite, you mean?
Rather than a matter of appetite.
The reasonableness of gathering up details,
of setting contradictory transcripts side by side,
these seam shut those places where darkness gapes most lewdly.
One can always find the time to escape the present
into a fantasy of the future, ticking down
a compilation of swallowed loves till shame begins to taste like pride.
Still, to eat one’s way through the dreams of the dead!
Guessing which extinguished empire via the clues of cuisine.
Blindfolds come in handy, and a slavegirl to ease one’s doubts.
Fish and green olives or white beans and sausage. Brings to mind
a joke by Aretino, revealing his limits one specious quip at a time.
A heart-shaped apple-flavored biscuit called carabruta or dirty face,
and la palaudina, a tower of sponge cake,
thorned with almonds and a carapace of chocolate.