Skip to content

The book The House of the World has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and is now available on Amazon.

Cornbread…Thanksgiving

Everyone must bring a dish,
to this heavenly banquet,
this Thanksgiving
with its plump shameless berries,
and potatoes
stacked like snow
with rivers of muddy gravy
falling off their crests,
and pie like old geometry lessons,
right angles, acute,
and some
being mathematically ignorant,
scooped.

It all comes together
in a great cornucopia,
everyone vying for supremacy,
their special recipe,
strings and pearls
and globs of lemon,
custard things,
the spiritual transformation of eggs,
the moon
captured in the wine,
clear as a bell,
singing.

Everything ready
for the groaning innards
of the actors,
the fun,
the conversation,
the old debates,
the gossip stored up like cream,
flying back and forth,
the words,
the aroma,
the flush of faces,
the swollen lips kissed often
like the aftermath of sex,
and I love it!

Giving my best and worse,
but. . .
But!?
Where is the cornbread,
the granular grain,
the yellow bricks
pouting for butter.
Where is my cornbread?
The plain, enchanting love,
for which
above all beauties,
I know such tenderness,
such lust,
such unwashed feeling.

I would dance a night away
to capture it in my mouth,
hold its warm cake in my hand
and praise it above all else,
the lowly cornbread,
the one,
above all else,
I love with a randy desire.
Nowhere on the table!
In the kitchen,
hidden on the counter?
In the stove,
ashamed in the presence
of kings and queens?
The commoner,
my love,
my sweet, dear indulgence
who I would ask for first
and take to bed.

Above this gluttony of pleasure,
it is the cornbread
I love the most.
No!
The only one I love,
a feast in itself,
the plain and simple
offering of the world,
with its dear honesty
and plainness,
simple texture,
sweet countenance,
devoid of airs,
for which my passion grows,
sweet innocence,
above all else!

Published inIndex of all Poems