Memory of Eating with Hands

We were taught to eat with 
our hands, the whole hand; to scoop
 
rice and fish with all the fingers 
and not just miserly thumb and index,
 
scrawny bird beak pecking through 
gravel for leavings. A person

who knows how to eat like this
must be generous and forgiving, 

no? Not afraid to get sauce 
and grease on their fingers, 

not ashamed to show who's boss
of their own circumstance 

and lick the last traces 
of honey and salt or garlic 

oil. When I was a child afflicted 
with blisters and allergies,

my mothers took turns coaxing 
me to eat a little more. 

While distracting me with stories, 
they'd shape small cubes and pyramids 

out of sticky rice, hide bits of meat 
or vegetable inside like treasures 

buried with the Pharaoh, who was 
sometimes though rarely a woman—

Like Hatshepsut, who despite a chronic
skin condition built temples and monuments,

brought wealth of ivory and gold 
from other lands. Sometimes she wore 

a fake beard and man's kilt just because 
she could. After she died, it's said her 

stepson tried to erase all official memory 
of her: doesn't he sound like a hater? 

Whereas she's someone I can imagine 
tearing the meat of fowl from a joint,

relishing fruit, washing everything 
down with a generous gulp of wine.