Black Coffee
Oct 13 2013


A fussy child
strictly quarantines
peas, and mashed potatoes.
Where does he get
this precocious sense
of purity?

Will he grow up to be
a white supremacist
jack-booted skinhead?
To turn up his nose
at the new, and complex?
Or to simply prefer
black coffee, plain toast

made with white sliced bread,
vanilla ice cream
sans syrup, or sprinkles?

We come together

at the festive table,
sharing our food
eating with fingers.
Dip motley spoons
into big communal pots.

Save the eyeball
of the sacrificial sheep
for an esteemed stranger
from some Western Shangri-La,

a prized offering
for an honoured guest.
Who feels the weight
of all eyes upon him
like daggers drawn.

I called this poem Black Coffee because that's where it began: that I'm a purist when it comes to eating, preferring simple preparation and staple foods. Kids are especially sensitive to this idea of "contamination". It's probably rooted in biology: before they are old enough to learn what is safe and what isn't, evolution has equipped them with a wary gene and hyper-sensitive taste.

I was planning to make a short amusing riff on simple foods, a word-play poem with lots of colour and smell and taste. But it's Thanksgiving, and the idea of communal eating, of the festive table, subverted that intention. The occasion reminded me of food as the common denominator of hospitality; as something incredibly intimate that can be both alienating and unifying. And I thought of our generally reserved Western ways in contrast with cultures of extreme hospitality (that is, more communal shame cultures, in contrast with our more individualistic and guilt-driven morality), in which a man's esteem is rooted in how well he treats a stranger, even to the extent of impoverishing himself.

I hope the "eyeball" shocks, suddenly materializing in a way that blindsides the reader. It's also a nice counterpoint to the bland food that precedes it: white food like mashed potatoes, sliced bread (even if it is toasted!), and vanilla ice cream. I must have read this someplace like the National Geographic:  the prized delicacy of an eyeball reserved for the most honoured guest. "Shangri-La" works well with the rhyme (motley ...pot ...offering ...honoured ...upon ...drawn); but I also like how its tension in combination with "Western" flips our point of view, illustrating that we probably seem as exotic and mythic (in the sense of material wealth, anyway) to them as they seem to us. And it's a wonderfully evocative word, full of the fantastic East.