Once it starts you can’t stop it:
My father leans into it like a hunchback
at the particle-board table in the light
of our kitchen, arranging his little world:
Vidalia with paring knife; Iron City next
to French’s; open sardine tin/no plate.


His left hand grabs the onion/the right
slashes a fat slice/the right dips into
the briny swamp of sardine/lifts one
by the tail/down to the French’s/then
plunges it headfirst into his cavernous mouth.


Crunch of Vidalia, then pump an Iron, and
we are livin now, baby, we are home—
me watching my Dad from the dining room,
the grunt and slosh of it all, thinking,
My god, he’s eating the head—where
are its eyes?	
							
			
What world is this? He’s god and brute,	
half quake/half precision, what kind of man              
can stare down the milky eye of the sardine			  
sans flinch, then sever its head with
those same incisors he grew in his mother’s belly?


Now he’s starting again, reaching
for the onion, two-fisted and ravenous,
king of kings in this 6X6 tabernacle,
he’s the holy spirit of torque and focus,
and this is more action than
I’ve ever seen in church.


I’m standing here at age 12, learning
that sweet seduction of revulsion/desire,
I’m learning real good that the guy I want
to marry is the one who can do the worst
thing without blinking, a man who eats life
raw, the heads of things—and what else
won’t scare him?	


Oh Father, oh terrible primate, I am one of you.
Together we can skin the rabbit, stuff
the apple in the pig’s mouth, in this kitchen
there is so much I don’t know yet:
That I can write this poem.
That I will want to die many times in this life.
That in ten years I will drive back to this house,
to this kitchen, looking for your glasses.
I’ll drive back to you at the funeral home
and gently place them on your face
in the casket, with no flash
or fanfare, just the music
of my heart playing:
too soon,
too soon.

Listen to a reading of the poem.