I met some chickens yesterday, beautiful, ornamental, fantastical chickens. Even their eggs made Faberge confections look cheap. Just look at their natural Easter-time beauty.
Those chickens happily ate some worms, offered by my friend and their human keeper. I kept thinking of the chickens I eat, in those cramped cages in hot chicken houses, their bodies unnaturally plumped for our super-sized appetites.
A chicken is not just a chicken.
II
Everybody eats. Take damselflies, for example. They and dragonflies are masterful predators. As naiads living in the water, they'll eat anything they can: small fish, big fish, each other. In their final stage as emerged fliers, they eat any insect that can catch, including each other.
III
Of late, I have been possessed of an appetite for British mystery series -- Vera, Luther, Above Suspicion, Single-Handed. I can't get enough.
I can't enough of good-tasting things, too, especially sweets. Twenty-four macarons lasted less than a week. I consoled myself with the shipper's warning that they would be fresh for five days.
IV
Appetite
by Paulann Petersen
Pale gold and crumbling with crust
mottled dark, almost bronze,
pieces of honeycomb lie on a plate.
Flecked with the pale paper
of hive, their hexagonal cells
leak into the deepening pool
of amber. On your lips,
against palate, tooth and tongue,
the viscous sugar squeezes
from its chambers, sears sweetness
into your throat until you chew
pulp and wax from a blue city
of bees. Between your teeth
is the blown flower and the flower's
seed. Passport pages stamped
and turning. Death's officious hum.
Both the candle and its anther
of flame. Your own yellow hunger.
Never say you can't take
this world into your mouth.
