I loved the pig’s foot he brought
for show ’n tell, the cracklins his mother sent
on treat day, greasy in the mouth.
His plaid flannel jacket with snaps and the one
pair of work shoes he wore all year.
His towheaded buzzcut like a dandelion blown bare.
Once in the milk line he confessed
he’d never eaten a store-bought cupcake.
What else could I do? They came two in a pack,
Devil’s food with white icing piped like rickrack
on top. One for me, one for the butcher’s son,
who took his unserved cracklins home
on the bus, still in his mother’s Tupperware.
I loved the Hereford’s eye he kept
in a Miracle Whip jar on his desk
until the teacher said enough
was enough. Its ropey nerves in back,
thick and umbilical, like the stalk
of an artichoke laid on a plate.
And the vitrea—shimmering
like an oyster, round as an egg yolk
jiggling in its protective membrane.
The butcher’s son knew how real
things could get the first time a kid saw
a cow’s eye in a jar.
A loneliness you could look all the way
into. Some kids, he knew, couldn’t take it.
The way it looked both empty
and brimming, lifeless yet ready to bawl.
