Palatable

At one in the morning we decide we are
hungry, and pull off into a New Jersey rest stop.
Hardees is the only place open.
Neal and Steve discuss finances;
their combined eight dollars is worth
two pieces of fried chicken, fries, and a large
soda. Molly has water flavored like
strawberry, and drinks it through a straw.
I buy two biscuits, and with a spork,
primitive technology, spread honey across one,
jam on the other. "Marmalade?" Neal offers.
"Ew. Do you eat the skin of the orange?
No. Neither do I. Not even in jam."

Biscuit is a funny word, we decide,
eating in our car. To the British it's a cookie.
To rednecks it's a crumbly pastry. With gravy.
For dogs it's a treat, but then again,
dogs would probably find all
incarnations of biscuit acceptable.
Finally there is the spelling. This "cui" business
could easily be replaced with a "k."
"Cuit"? Looks more like "quit." Bizz-quit.

I start talking about the poor in Haiti,
who fry pancakes of butter, salt and dirt
on clay bricks in the sun. No nutritive value,
just something to fill their stomachs up.
The mukhet berry, soaked for days and
days, finally yields its toxins,
becomes palatable. This reminds
Molly of cashews. "They're poisonous
if you don't prepare them right. That's why
they're so expensive," she asserts.

We begin to drive, and
conversation lulls.
Twenty miles down the road, everyone
has dozed off except for me.
It starts to rain, the black road
getting blacker. I watch the lines,
an old survival tactic. Another:
mothers boil stones, tell their children
the food is almost ready, over and over
again, until they fall asleep.

Charlie Chaplain, curling up his spaghetti
shoestrings. They were really licorice.
the whole shoe, warmed and flattened
licorice. Steve's dress shoes sit
behind me, carelessly kicked off.
One hand on the wheel, I turn and
retrieve them. I lick the heel.
At first, the shoe polish taste, foreign
and chemical, like Play-Doh
gingerbread men, beheaded on a dare.
The toe, worn brown, is more organic,
rough to the touch but tart. I chew
a little on the tongue, watching the
road. Neal wakes. "What are you doing?"
I let the shoe drop from my mouth.
"I was hungry?"
Sleepily, he counters, "But we just ate."

continue with the next poem, “Desertion” >