Alive / Dead

Over the flat hum of the lake you ask me who, living or gone, I would invite to a dinner party if I could. I think aloud that I’d like to sit and eat with my father one more time. I would meet him at midnight by the glow of the refrigerator, and the pair of us would sit and feel the meat between our teeth, melting like fat on a hot griddle. Inches of bacon rind caught in out molars and going to our thighs, eating slice after slice of cured meats and hefty steaks, grist and grease, devouring them whole and us with it. You tell me that doesn’t sound much like a dinner party, and I suppose I already know that. It’s not the answer you hoped for, not Elvis or some long-gone queen, still, you let me have it. Overlooking the water, the moon appears as a grand reflection of planetary rule below us. I think it looks like a grand wheel of cheese, and imagine my father slicing it for his burger, the immense black of the sky a window into his enormous gullet.