She cooks the meal she serves
to her husband, full of their baby,
scalded in broth, chopped up in stew,
the bones removed, flecks of skin
for flavoring. With basil, parsley,
sage and thyme. Leeks instead of onions.
Newly coined carrots. Sweet peas.
The pink medallions of meat,
shoulder muscle from their son,
metonymized. He eats the hearty mix,
licking gristle, leaving the grease
upon his lips. Rare for him,
he compliments the cook and burps.
The stomach already knows, recoils.
The ignorant brain and scavenger lips
have yet to grasp. He smiles, no,
he bares his teeth, to pick
at pieces of caught meat.
Her stomach, what was in her stomach
once, now in his. Pregnancy,
the only way a man can know it.
Her crime is much too horrible
for anyone ever to answer why.
Madness cancels out the search.
A friend of mine in critical theory,
enjoying a night at a topless bar,
is frightened when they step on his table
and shimmy for cash. They suck
his dollars up their twats,
without a pause or stop in their dancing.
He turns to his friend, another man
in critical theory, and says:
"No meditation."