POETRY : PROPER CUTLERY / LAUREN PARKER
Lauren Parker is one of not only our favorite poets around these parts, but are very favorite people. During the early years of the pandemic where The Racket was our life raft we were clinging to with pruny fingers, Parker was often an attendee or a reader at our Zoom shows. We looked forward to the poetry–raw and funny with a hunk of emotion bleeding in the center–but also the conversation, about music, about writing, about the absurdity and horror of the moment.
This piece, “Proper Cutlery” ended up in our 50th Issue. Parker was nice enough to record a wonderful version of it for you to listen to. Do so if you have a moment.
“Proper Cutlery”
by Lauren Parker
The only way to kill a wolf
Is to eat it up
Teeth and all, you boil those
Until they are soft like eggs
Slurp them down with gravy
That’s breakfast
Offal is next - the organs that hold secrets
Divine entrails, ropes and ropes of sausage
Soak them in oil, salt
Frankincense and myrrh
a few sprigs of rosemary
Tuck in a bay leaf
(for prosperity)
At the sun’s highest point, eat the basest parts
Dinner is the fine cuts
You’ll need a good knife
Not that old iron thing
the Woodsman gave you
Not the skinning knife, no
It’s silver and shiny and modern
You need something domestic
Ceramic, tame every cut.
Conquest in cuisine.
Chew, chew the meat, rare and red
Taste it, no brine,
The spread is divine, good wine
Folded napkins
The sort of effort you never used to do
But when you sit down to your feast
Every bit will taste and feel
Like you’re chewing off your own hind leg.
Lauren Parker is a writer living in Oakland.
