Three Poems

XIII

If you ever travel to the prosperous land of Ambrakia, score a boar-fish if you happen on one, even if it costs its weight in gold—otherwise, the immortals will rain down on you a good dose of the harshest rancor. Take care not to overlook it since this fish is the finest kind of nectar.

But be forewarned: Mortals are not permitted to eat this fish, or even cast their eyes on one. The only exception is for those who carry a certain type of basket woven from hollow marsh reeds and who are adept at whirling small bones in their hands before casting them, and those who lay gifts of mutton legs on the ground.

(Note)

XXXII

You have got to get your hands on tail meat from a female tuna. Not just any; I mean the mothers of all tunas—ones that hail from Byzantion. Cut her up into steaks and grill them after giving them a light dash of finely powdered salt. Baste with olive oil. Eat them hot, dipping pieces into seasoned brine. If you dare eat them without dressing, as the immortals would, nothing would ever be as good. But if you dish them out drenched in vinegar, you'll render the divine vile.

LXII

At a feast never neglect to adorn your neck with garlands of all sorts of blooms from every quarter of the earth's bounty. Mete out drops of the finest perfumes to dress your hair. Cast upon the fire's silken ash Syria's fragrant fruit—frankincense and myrrh.

While you drink your fill someone should bring you such delicacies as sow's belly or womb braised in tangy vinegar, cumin and silphium—or whatever roasted bird is sweetest in season.

Don't follow the manner of those folk from Siracusa, those people who act like frogs and merely drink without eating a thing. Ignore them and dine on what foods I've been telling you about. All their side dishes evidence the lowest sort of culinary destitution—boiled chick-peas, fava beans, apples and dried figs. Yet I'll make one exception and praise pastries from Athens. If you can't go there and get one, next best is to hunt around for Attic honey since that's the dressing that makes those flat-cakes so exquisite.

A free man should live no other way. Or else be condemned to rack and ruin buried miles and miles deep underground beneath the bottomless Pit, beneath Tartaros.

Archestratos
translated from the Greek by Gian Lombardo

Gastrology or Life of Pleasure or Study of the Belly or Inquiry Into Dinner
Quale Press

Grapefruit

by Ted McMahon

My grandfather got up early to section grapefruit.
I know because I got up quietly to watch.
He was tall. His hairless shins stuck out
below his bathrobe, down to leather slippers.
The house was quiet, sun just up, ticking of
the grandfather clock tall in the corner.

The grapefruit were always sectioned just so,
nestled in clear nubbled bowls used
for nothing else, with half a maraschino
centered bleeding slowly into
soft pale triangles of fruit.
It was special grapefruit, Indian River,
not to be had back home.

Doves cooed outside and the last night-breeze
rustled the palms against the eaves.
He turned to see me, pale light flashing
off his glasses
and smiled.

I remember as I work my knife along the
membrane separating sections.
It's dawn. The doves and palms are far away.
I don't use cherries anymore.
The clock is digital
and no one is watching.

Then too there is this

by J. Allyn Rosser

joy in the day's being done, however

clumsily, and in the ticked-off lists,

the packages nestling together,

no one home waiting for dinner, for

you, no one impatient for your touch

or kind words to salve what nightly

rises like heartburn, the ghost-lump feeling

that one is really as alone as one had feared.

One isn't, not really. Not really. Joy

to see over the strip mall darkening

right on schedule a neon-proof pink

sunset flaring like the roof of a cat's mouth,

cleanly ribbed, the clouds laddering up

and lit as if by a match struck somewhere

in the throat much deeper down.

The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog

To be blessed
said the old woman
is to live and work
so hard
God's love
washes right through you
like milk through a cow

To be blessed
said the dark red tulip
is to knock their eyes out
with the slug of lust
implied by
your up-ended
skirt

To be blessed
said the dog
is to have a pinch
of God
inside you
and all the other dogs
can smell it

Alicia Suskin Ostriker

The Corner Grocery Store

by Walter McDonald

Slope-shouldered, thin,

disabled by the Bataan

death march,

my boss sold

whatever he could stock

on meager shelves

in 1946. Mornings

after fits of coughing

he scouted ads,

sent me for specials

to what in ten years more

they’d call supermarkets.

Shaking his head

he marked each item up

however much he thought

would sell.

Once a day

he called his ex-wife

long distance, ended

slamming the phone down,

screaming at me.

Always his crotch

itched from jungle rot.

Halfway through a sale

he’d motion me to ring it up

and rush out scratching wildly.

He had a trunk of souvenirs,

Japanese coins and teeth

and paper bills thick

as parchment. He doled them out,

bribed me to settle

for fifty cents a day.

Within six months his souvenirs,

his jungle rot, his customers

that never bought

more than a dollar’s worth,

drove him to bed,

wheezing for me to ring

exactly what they bought,

called me thief, one morning

hissed You Jap

you murderer get out.

How to Make Armor

Wear your bones like cold-rolled
steel, skin hammered
in brigandine sheets.
Pound leather and shadow
to a stiff segmentata.

Be corset-pinched.

Clad in devices,
night will rise like a wound,
duty bronzed to paldrons
hulking your shoulders.

When your bad decisions are fused
with chain mail and you're dueling
in the silence of thieves,
go at the world in stone.

Fear is a long-revered tradition.

In the carbon-dark, language
is harnessed in its helm
as "order" from the Latin ordo
means closed circle.

Be plate-sealed,
protected as a priest's halberd
wielding against a cauldron
of medicine.

Or lie naked in the dandelions,
pained with sensation.

Jennifer K. Sweeney