Food Poetry: My Hunger Has No Indecision
_The intersection of food and poetry is a natural one: both are subjects that concern themselves with experience, memory, sense, and self. We’ve asked some of our favorite poets from around the world to share works that fuse the poetic with the edible. _ See a gallery of last year’s food poems »
My Hunger Has No Indecision
by Dave Brinks
my hunger has no indecision
about who's sitting at the table during dinner
if it's a rabbit not a turtle
nor a shank of cow
I imagine little whiskers twitching
inside your mouth
if it's a more unintelligible food
like couchon d' lait
I bow my head accordingly
to the sadness the joy
which our hands doth make
if it's something pungent like sweetbreads
or slivers of olived liver
my nose becomes a long knife
and keeps us in stitches
if the feast comes with a specially prepared sauce
garnished with capers
I remove the capers
and pretend my life is complicated
like the specially prepared sauce
Dave Brinks is the founder and executive director of the New Orleans Institute for the Imagination, editor of_YAWP, A Journal of Poetry & Art, publisher of Beaux Heaux Press, and artistic director of New Orleans Literary & Performance Series. Brinks is the author of seven books published in the US, including_The Caveat Onus_ (Black Widow Press, 2009) and_The Secret Brain, Selected Poems 1995–2012_ (Black Widow Press, 2013)._
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