Birthday Poem

It is important to remember that you will die,lifting the fork with the sheep’s brainlovingly speared on it to the mouth, the littlepiece smooth on the one side as a babymouse pickled in wine; on the other, blood-plush and intestinal atopits bed of lentils. The lentilswere once picked over for stonesin the fields of India perhaps, the sunshining into tractor blades slow-movingas the swimmer’s arms that now pierce,then rise, then pierce again the coldwater of the river outside your window calledThe Heart or The Breast, even, but meaningsomething more than this, beyondthe crudeness of flesh; though whatis crude about flesh anyway,watching yourself every day loseanother bit of luster?It is wrong to say one kind of beautyreplaces another. Isn’t it your heartalong with its breast muscles thathas started to weaken; solaceisn’t possible for every loss, or why elseshould we clutch, stroke, gasp, lovethe little powers we oncewere born with? Perhaps the worst thingin the world would be to live forever.Otherwise what would be the pointof memory, without whichwe would have nothing to hurtor placate ourselves with later?Look. It is only getting worsefrom here on out. Thank God. Otherwisethe sun on this filthy rivercould never be as boring or as poignant, the sheep’s brain trembling on the forkwouldn’t seem once stungby the tang of grass, by the callof some body distant and beloved to itsinging through the milk. The forkwould be only a fork, and not the coolheft of it between your fingers, the scratchof lemon in the lentils, onion, parsleyslick with blood; food that,even as you lift it to your mouthyou’d never thought you’d eat, but do.

(2012, Volume 33.2)