Gary Fincke: Headcheese, Liverwurst, a List of Loaves

Our refrigerator
Opened to liverwurst,
Headcheese, a list of loaves:
Luncheon and Luxury;
Olive, Old-Fashioned, and
The great alliteration
Of Peppered and Pimento.
We eat, my father said,
One hundred million cans
A year, justifying
Our Spam. Three per second,
He figured, and we sat
For sandwiches he cooked
Because I refused them cold.
“You just don’t know what’s good,”
he said, and I agreed,
refusing altogether
Potted Meat Food Product,
Looking it up, lately,
To find “tripe, suet, beef hearts,”
Memorize the mystery
Of “partially defatted
Beef fatty tissue,” to tell
My father, who’s laid out
Cold cuts of celebration
For his restored heart, shaking
His head at snouts and stomachs,
All the meat byproducts
I can recall while we spread
Mustard or mayonnaise,
Add pickles and onions
To the short stack of squares
And circles between thick rye
With seeds. And I listen
To my father repeat
“This is eating” before
Our first bites, smiling while
We swallow extenders
And gelatins, relish
The joy of fat and spice.

Copyright 2023 Gary Fincke

Gary Fincke has won numerous awards for his writing, including the Bess Hokin 
Prize from Poetry Magazine. He lives in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. 

Homemade headcheese board (source: Simplebites)