Somewhere, emerging from four hundred degree fryers,
skittering and popping with ethereal heat and pain,
it rises like an Aztec god of fear and holy retribution,
but where feathers should cloak its back and shoulders
with royal luminescent plumage, cascade its wings
in a plush coat of white so pure and blinding like
the perfect ermine fur dreams to be, instead a golden
crispy skin still crackles from the bath of roiling,
singing grease. The beak’s cruel scimitar glints toward
us like the useless tongs we raise now, dull tools
to pull the first pieces floating to the top as heavy
thighs still nestle in the oil before a last ascent to light
and steam. Our ghost, our king pinches us in its fierce
grip, shakes us dry and clean of sweat and flour and hope
before we are cut open, emptied of heart and liver
and all the rest spilling to the floor’s drains, butter-
flied and separated into our nine or eight pieces,
neck and head magically disappearing as the offering
of herbs and spices, fat and bone and blood and flesh
are spread forth, arranged by parts and pieces on silver
trays waiting for worship in these altars of warming air.
Photo By: Jim Nix
