Like you, I came from curdling in milky heat
pressed out in cloth a daubing podge of butter-bright
fat, and full like a jelly sun
gemly glows, ungiving.
But I loved the feeling of being
promising so much
I stayed this way, too young for use,
too unclarified.
As you pressed yourself gone upon the world's tongue,
I regarded from a distance my rich
unpurchased food's improper beauty, kept
like honey for its topaz,
marmalade in garnet,
onyx bulbs of ripe
bobbing olives, those globed
saltfishes in a canned black sea.
This is life in glass and brine against
processing spoil riddling kingly jewels.
For now, I imagine I'm egg-pure.
I am not afraid of teeth,
but of villi, finger-combing my slender proteins
to find my chemistry--
that I am already made of rennet's animal death,
cannibal cream,
salt crystals that dissolve.
