One Man's Meat Novena Day Seven

Dunbarton, New Hampshire
Stark Family Cemetary 



One Man’s Meat 
Novena Day Seven         

--and then it was
There interposed a Fly
                                                Emily Dickinson


When the oldest goes away
from home it’s as though
you’d never known them
at all, never grown used

to them sitting at the table
with their skinny ankles
tucked under the rungs
of the chair in a gross 

balance at laughing
casually, like nothing was
wrong.  But supper’s
late and burned now

and nothing’s funny about
dried out patty beef
tucked in its own rancid
fat (it had sat thawing

in the sun almost all
day and too all of yesterday)
and it was my turn
to be blamed even though

I was too small: too small
to haul up two white-
paper packages labeled
GROUND on the tape, too

small for almost all of it but
the shape and sear and gulp
or two of bacon grease—the wood
stove was good and hot

I wasn’t too small for that
I suppose and going
all out had cleaned the meat
of all its green and you 

and me being the only ones
left ate everything we had
on our plates and when
we could we laughed

and when we couldn’t
we didn’t and isn’t that
the way they say it goes
sings the man on the radio

and any shit poor kid knows
exactly what he’s singing
and there’s a sink full of dishes
and it’s your turn

no it’s your turn no it’s your
turn and a fly tries to rise
drunk off the meat and we
you and me, we,

alone, don’t say another
word not another word




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