Fancy Considers and Re-Considers “Dinner”

In the Final Book of domesticity Fancy considers and re-considers “Dinner” in her memoir entitled: Memoirs Of a Gray Shawl:


Fish


inner body—flash
outer sleeve: the setting takes place
in a stream

then red canters in, silver
dashes

first innards, the mock lung
then the skin.

red-flash-silver

inner body/outer sleeve


angled the pearled light,
reflection and refraction
of this water as medium
this flesh as rainbow

copper heat, bright blood, paper gill,
the ruddiness of oxygen
in the cut throat
trout made all mouth and held agape

one side of the scales unveils a treasure:
this is where the gutting comes in.

and then there’s the fisher who allures it

who flanks it with a willow, a branch
a bough bending in real time
in a slow passive kill

death means to speak bluntly:
somewhere a buck knife
clicks into place making
the sound of a frankness.




The Fish Supper


Death speaks bluntly
and a buck knife might click into place
making the sound of a frankness.

one side of the scales reveals a treasure:
this is where the gutting comes in.

and then there’s the fisher who allures it

who flanks it with a willow, a branch
a bough bending in real time
in passive kill of cut throat

trout made all mouth and held a gap.

copper heat, bright blood, paper gill
amidst the ruddiness of oxygen

reflection and refraction
by water as medium
by skin as rainbows

angled the pearled light
red-flash-silver

first, innard
mock lung
then skin

red canters in silver dashes

inner body—flash—outer sleeve

inner body—flash—outer sleeve

44.2.

The essential problem was that her table was wobbly. And the problem before the essential problem was that she had her eye on a certain other table when she arrived, and that by the time she had ordered her non-fat, no-foam, double-espresso Baggis Haggis Chino Mojito ® from the charmingly disgruntled barista dressed in the timeless fashion of sexual angst and I-HatE-dAdDy cOmbaT bOots™, the “crusaders,” as she was then lovingly referring to them in her head, had snagged that particular table to discuss the motivational triumph otherwise known in the British text as “The Porpoise Driven Knife” :







She sat at the table uncomfortably, and it wobbled to and fro. She placed “Problems in Modern Taxidermy” upon it, and the table spun like a top.

In attempt to balance herself she tried placing her Chino Mojito on the right side of the table using her left hand, and then delicately extending her right arm to make a great arc in the air and place her book on the left side; she did this only to find the whole mess more awkwardly titled than before.

Then, like Moses parting the sea and as one making an offering of her own body she moved her right arm into empty space and took the book from the left side of the table. She then took her left hand and delicately lifted her drink as if she was supporting the wait of an infant’s neck. She was motherly in this respect, with hips childbearing yet modest enough to slide effortlessly into Juicy Couture, and her hands were smooth with chamomile lotion.

With muscles and ligaments moving effortlessly through space and time she tried the opposite orientation—placing her drink on the left side with her right hand and placing her book on the right side with her left hand.

But still the table was wobbly and it spun like a top.
It ran in big wheels, so she spun it around, around, around.

Trying to find the right position, wheeling, wheeling wheeling

a galaxy, a farris wheel in the city of lights, a big red tricycle just like the one daddy gave her.

And she never forgave her daddy...


She spun her table, and her crusader came.
“Can I help you with that?” He asked, and he wanted to be her crusader. He wanted to be her crusader and
he placed a piece of paper under the table’s leg.


Will the boy fix the table? Will Fancy Fall in Love? Stay tuned to find out...

44.

Get this, it was Tuesday and raining and Fancy says, “I’m going to fall in love today.” She was joking. It was Tuesday. And so she giggled and zipped up her hoody.

She giggled and zipped up her hoody, cocked her head to the side, said, “I’m going to fall in love,” and went out into the afternoon laughing and kicking up puddles in her red rubber rain boots.

That day, the day Fancy said she would fall in love, just after the rain had quieted and settled into a soft blue blood, Fancy sat at Billy’s Bean Bag Hag sipping on a non-fat, no-foam, double-espresso Baggis Haggis Chino Mojito ® while thoughtfully turning the pages of “Problems in Modern Taxidermy.”

Fancy said she would fall in love, and although she said it only in jest, she opted for a double shoot of espresso to ease her desires (meaning hunger) which was an expensive and temporary fix until her four o’clock snack of rice cakes and paper sandwiches rolled around; but it sure beat bingeing and purging—an act that made her more desirable but also hungry and predisposed to tooth decay (which she was adverse to).

On the day Fancy said she would fall in love, on the day she went out for coffee and opted for double espresso, there just so happened to be a bible study group gathering at “The Hag” to discuss their reading of “The Purpose Driven Wife.”

To be continued…