Steak

LEO HABER

Dry‑aged for three weeks or eight, hanging

in a refrigerated room, the moisture seeping out,

the body toughness crushed, this is about

dying, the kind of dying, the kind of mangling

that serves the greater good.  O strong nutty

taste of porterhouse cooked on the juicy bone,

strips of sirloin with touch, tang, tone

of bloated beer halls, murderous men, slutty

women, a congeries of violences that no wisp

of lettuce or sprig of myrtle or faint smell

of garden fragrances could adequately address.

I sit congealed in my own juice; I lisp

in retching admiration of powers of hell

that order our lives and manage our daily mess.


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