The Brooklyn Rail

Poetry Porkchop

White fat rendered from the belly of a beast may be an ingredient, 
but no matter how delicious, it’s best to trim the lard when revising
your texture. Recipes will vary according to taste, tradition, and
technique. In any case, when chopping your pork, you’ll want firm
meat, not the watered-down damp, pumped-up pale, soft flesh of a
factory-farm pig. Unlike the flavorless work slop, a poetry porkchop
is tasty and tender. A satisfying texture’s not impossible. It’s lean
and rich with just the right amount of grease. And no, it’s neither
kosher nor halal.

Sounds That Dog Can’t Hear

“We bought the best dog.”

Sitting up straight, looking alert,
nevertheless, that dog can’t hear
climactic crunch of data, expert
testimony of research scientists
backing public health officials, low
frequency grievances of poorly paid
essential workers.

That dog can’t hear
drums and chants of rising demands,
desperate prayers of asylum seekers,
screams of terrified children
shot down in this week’s massacre, or
anguished sobs of inconsolable
fathers and mothers.

Turning an ear, that faithful nipper
can’t hear any voice that isn’t the master’s.

Trip of the Tongue

Tripping on a slippery thought, a newsreader announces, “Black
women have a high rate of fertility,” flubbing the actual headline of
the story: Black women have a high rate of mortality.

Of the richest “developed” nations, the leader in maternal deaths is
the US, where a black woman is three times more likely than a white
woman to die with a pregnancy-related medical condition. A black
woman may also have a higher risk of infertility, but less access to
treatment, due to disparities in health care.

Rolling off the tongue, old chestnut from a blighted tree, when
reading a report on the dire statistics, this newscaster’s diction slips,
caught in a thought of prolifically pregnant black women.