GO GRIEF, GO

you unwanted smörgåsbord

with all your flavors and scents

pickled, roasted, gravad, baked, and smoked

swallow or spit? do you know if she must

sell her house after fifty years

four generations and the lost painting

not to be found even in the attic?

are you aware if it still hangs

in the empty and twice emptied house?

she asked me to drive, run upstairs

and find its shadow. grief’s

this alphabet with its own cursive curls

one letter hooks into another

runs like a crazed mouse

over the smörgåsbord, vinegared beets

cut in cubes resting in a creamy marinade

sighing a mumbled bossa nova

longing for its original state of bright hairy

root-dom. If I can’t put it in my mouth

although I welcome the acidic

sweet taste, the layered reddish lines domed

around the shape so much like a baby’s head

or a baby just fed, its rounded belly,

so like its mother’s just a few months before

inside or outside? a piece of pickled red beet

schmoozing with a herring slice

covered with raw onion and whole black peppercorns.

PUBLISHED IN THE INQUISITIVE EATER, MUNCH ISSUE, OCTOBER 17, 2024