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Meat — by Matthew Naunheim
A surgeon once told me
“It’s supposed to smell bad”
as he cauterized a tiny vessel
with smoky wisps and sizzles, offered
a grim nod.
I think he knows it smells like meat
the well-done roast he served his kids
seeping beefy redolence
and juice.
The ER doc: I watch her pull
that half-departed child
from splaying thighs and drooping breasts
and folded skin.
As in
that half-remembered Thanksgiving
elbow-deep in turkey, tugging giblets
from their rightful berth.
The Pyrex dish the obstetrician used
to visualize the pulp
was pink – the Holiday Edition.
I see her sieve still speckled
with pieces of the last evacuation.
She vows to scrub it spotless.
My kitchen hums the harmonies
of searing steak and hissing fat
and spectral whispers of
an unforgotten meat.
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