Easter Dinner

First, there's the prayer over the roast;both are tidy, greased with devotion.God is at the table. Some wife is too,and an overhandled infant girl,who tries and tries to squirm out of reachbut is always brought back to eat.He sharpens his knives and carves the bird.Later his teeth grind down on politics and gristle.He prefers his meat to be soft as an earlobe,the wings and face avulsed from the body,all traces of her life and deathdismembered from the table.

Someone could recall the bird beforewhen she nipped ice crystals out of her wingsand sunbathed at dawn. Or someonemight speak of how she sang her horror through bloodwhen they shackled her legs,hung her upside down, and slit her throat,cutting her head clean off. But no one does.

In time, he will leave the tableto colonize a tv chair and nod off,and the wife, humming to herself,will clear the carnage from the table.The night will come, the Resurrection will pass,and all of her life the infant with her overlarge eyeswill carry a hunger in her bellyfor something else.