With the meats and the poultry all spoiling
for a terrible fight,
nutrient extraction is the natural objective.
The produce, too, must be purified.
So I have waterboarded my watermelon
and boiled my eggs.
I have yanked the spines from my prickly pear,
broken my turkey’s legs,
blinded my potatoes eyes with sodium lights,
whipped all my damn cream,
force-fed my festively fattened calf,
thumb-screwed my garlic cloves,
tartared and de-feathered all my precious fowl,
and flayed my chicken’s breasts.
I have pulled the nails from Porky’s bare knuckles,
impaled my shish’s kebabs,
reduced rocky mountain bulls to mere oysters,
and fully racked my lamb.
I have keelhauled the kelp in my sushi,
mutilated my mushrooms,
strategically deprived my wine of air,
and deafened my corn-silked ears.
I have assaulted both pork and peppers,
I have ta’liqed my leeks.
I have tickled my pickles half to death,
and scalped my ice-berg’s head.
You’d never guess what I have shrimp-tied
or which fish I’ve flogged.
In the name of this torturous gastric quest,
one truth is all I glean—
it turns out our mothers indeed knew best:
we are, in the end, what we eat.