The steak's not what gave you food poisoning
A slab of steak slipped from my sweaty hands
Several months ago.
You crowded around it like ants as I
Feverishly grabbed at my story to slap it
Back onto the same plate I gave to the law.
It’s been there a while so you start chewing
At the meat of my story hoping to find
Lumps of fat among salt and sinew.
You wait till my face is turned before
You spit it back and recoil, withdraw.
“You could have cooked it differently.
You could have.
I don’t know - you could have presented it
With a sprig of rosemary suffocated against
The side of the plate everyone saw.”
[What you mean by your unpalatable metaphor
Is that the steak, so to speak, is a person who
Fell over with their hands bleeding and had to be
Given a man’s clothes to cover herself
And since then acquainted themselves with
A special toilet fit for Queens to stick heaving head into
Every time she was reminded of it
Through brutal words and scenes and glances.
And she stuck her head in six times a day
But sure, you have food poisoning.]
So - I never thought when I served it
How it would look because my god -
It was reeking out my fridge, I could not
Breathe every time I opened it. I could not
Just sit and watch it bleed and thaw.
I understand it is revolting. That it stinks
And that I salted it and -
“My god, girl, stop FEELING so much
So much, for so long - my god, girl
You should be grateful I tasted it at all.”
I understand. Maybe it is raw and puss filled and
You feel that now is a time to point out
How pooling congealed blood is unattractive
But the little content warning card by the plate
Had told you: this was rotten meat, and my pall.
And if you recall the minutes before
I dropped it before you - You will remember
And see the little gouges on the meat
Where I had attempted, so hard, to cling -
Because I never said yes to either fall.
And I do not recall asking you to eat it,
You just sat at the table, didn’t you?
And, smackingly, tried to taste it while it was hot.
But I never offered you a gourmet meal
I never asked for a curtain call.