Vox Populi
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Thomas Sayers Ellis: Godzilla’s Avocado
Tonight, Prophet
is helping Noni make
“creatures,” the term
she “cooked up” for mussels.
I am “Noni,” her
fake baby daddy,
the one she got
her style from, not her
“soft and buttery”
bottom lip, that came
from Mommy. Nonies see things differently.
Waffles, brown skin.
Lady Liberty making us all healthy
holding up her green
flame of asparagus.
Prophet’s a bean eater,
a yummy Kingpin critter.
Run, edamame, run,
the same sun
that rises in orange juice
sets in mac and cheese.
From a lumpy russet, swirling
in a cosmos of miso,
colors mash into casserole.
Kids love kitchens, the sushi chef
re-ending monsters
with embassy-precision.
Life’s raw rolls, ready
to unravel the difficult answers
we wrap in seaweed.
“Love is when two people
like the same food
and the same toys,
but war is when lots of people
dress up like salads
and eat each other.”
Messy imagination.
All meals need metaphors.
Poems, cutting boards.
An artichoke’s heart does not pump ketchup.
It pumps pesto,
oily, olive clots of guacamole.
Prophet is learning
to grow things, including time,
real time, some sense
of the vitamins of radiance.
The seedling on
the window sill, slow to trust sun.
Kids love nature, things smaller than them,
like mushrooms,
cooked into clouds.
Radiation.
Fooling time, rushing food,
hurts the body.
Pesticides are a big deal, poor bees.
The microwaves
hives fear.
Our silver age of dining.
Copyright 2019 Thomas Sayers Ellis. Included in Vox Populi by permission of the author.
Poet, Photographer, Professor, Thomas Sayers Ellis is the bandleader and a co-founding member of Heroes Are Gang Leaders. He is the author of “The Maverick Room,” “Skin, Inc. Identity Repair Poems (Graywolf Press 2005 / 2010)” and “The Corny Toys,” a chapbook length poem. His work has appeared in The Paris Review, Poetry, Best American Poetry, The Nation, Tin House as well as numerous anthologies. He has taught at numerous Universities and is the recipient of a Mrs. Giles Whiting Writers Award and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for Poetry in 2015.
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