by Joseph Dorazio
The word God spelled-out in the seeds of a slice of eggplant—
that regal and chaste purple beauty. Now ask yourself,
could that ever happen in a cucumber?
The blessed Virgin Mary appears as a grease stain
on a pizza pan, or on a toasted cheese sandwich.
While the world hungers for meaning,
God simply hungers. And why shouldn't the Lord appear
in our food? The Devil certainly does: E. coli in spinach,
salmonella tainted peanut butter jars,
prions and mad cows. While obese Americans battle the bulge,
the powers of good and evil are duking it out in our food.
It's a Biblical struggle for our tines: extra virgin olive oil
versus tabasco sauce. Sur la table apocalypse style for the
second coming of Child, and Nostradamus' third anti-pasto.
Ah, such is life in these endive times.
Joseph Dorazio studied anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, and served as a docent at Penn's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. His poetry has appeared in a number of regional poetry reviews.
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