|
| |
Planche de Chair Cuite
She was not invited
She was arranged
They never wanted Jasmine
not the woman who brought basil-clean hands
and pomegranate soap
who harmonized soliloquies into pastries
while they offered only
hinges rusted shut
She was not guest
She was garnish
Not Jasmine the flower
but Jasmine the bulb
strangled in its own clay
frost biting at the marrow
buried beneath their polite
rejections
She spoke once
deliberate deliberate
If they must eat me let them chew gently
She coughed candied TB
They dabbed napkins
They did not hear
Their mouths were full of false forgiveness
they never meant
to swallow
I did not mourn my wife
I prepared her
Not with grief
but with brine and balsam
I weighed her mercy
in ounces
Glazed her regret
with saffron
Pressed juniper into joint
tied thyme to tendon
She was not embalmed
She was emulsified
She was not buried
She was basted
I laid her upon the charcuterie board
the very board once deemed
too rustic for their hosting
Now it would hold
truth
They came as they always came
teeth lacquered for appetite
grief corseted in black velvet
Heels ticking like guilt's
metronome
They hovered
They hunkered
They hungered
Is that veal
No
Something richer
It finishes like fine wine rinsed
in rosemary
They did not recognize her
They had never truly tasted her
before
infused
braised
I smiled
cleaver-clean
And in one tremor
one breath too human
I heard her voice
behind my ear
They chew too quickly slow them down
Still I served
By dessert their cheeks flushed
with meat-salt
One moaned that her tongue felt redeemed
Another sighed that something inside
was singing
They laughed
They praised the reduction
They took
seconds
They did not taste her life
only her labor
lacquered in glaze
salted with absence
When they left
chairs scraping back their guilt
like confessional doors
the room emptied of hunger
but not of presence
I remain
The cellar exhales
marrow-cold
Her portrait governs the shadows
no oils
no frame
Just aspic and regret
Beneath
her apron
sanguine-stiff and rosemary-scented
bind with singed benedictions
And pinned below
the final course
a recipe card
salt-stained
signed not in ink
but glaze
To serve cold
Always cold
In her own
hand
To Love Well Is to Eat Eternally
She said this first
They say it now
I slice her memory thin
upon my tongue
She lives between chews
but sometimes I taste her scream
beneath the salt
a rasp beneath the glaze
Sometimes the knife
shakes
Just a tremor
A shudder
The cellar breathes back
cold
heavy
watching
And in the gathering damp dark
I hear it still
the sound of gentle
chewing
I never stopped serving
I never stopped tasting
She never stopped feeding them
Copyright ©
Daniel Henry Rodgers
|
|