Flesh

“Who shall give us flesh to eat?”—Numbers 11:4, King James Bible

I wake up hungry.

When I look into the mirror, I see a shriveled

corpse looking back—sunken eyes embedded

in a mass of wrinkles; a skeleton with a shrug

of skin, carelessly flung over bones. Strands of

hair still clinging to my scalp. The dog whines

and runs with tail tucked into his belly. Stumble

out of room, down the hall. My hand, a

tortured claw of sinew and bone,

grapples with the white handle of the fridge.

The meats go first—the cold cuts,

the three day old pot roast, the fetid

baloney that only the dog will eat. Use my

nails to shred them all into swallowable bites.

But then it becomes too slow, the act of shredding a

hindrance, and I stuff bigger and bigger pieces

down my throat, choking them down.

Then the dairy—an entire wheel of brie cheese

with the pale waxy skin, and blocks of butter

waterfall it all down with

orange juice and milk,

and then eat the plastic cartons. The plastic is not

unpleasant going down. In fact, I enjoy the crunch.

Empty. Emptiness in spasms, in waves,

with skin stretched like dead things receding into

earth, this broken frame, and jutting concave ribs,

and

this need,

this need,

this need.

Shaking, I reach for the eggs, swallow them one by one.

I leave the fruits and vegetative shit for last—insubstantial air.

The front door opens, my wife calls out a tentative hello,

perhaps she sees the dog pissing itself by the door,

and I turn, double-fisting a jar of mayo, a jar of pickles,

turn to her voice and say, “I’m in the kitchen.”