What do the labels with barcodes mean, affixed
to one corner of each plastic-wrapped tray
gleaming in supermarket freezers? From what
barn and what pasture, from what processing
plant and what ship, through what border
have they come for inspection, in order to be
stacked in a hold? Before landing between two
halves of a bun with a slice of tomato and a frilled
lettuce leaf, what variety of cheap trimmings and cuts
did your hamburger patty subsume? Another day,
another recall— as though it were only a matter
of putting down the fork, pulling the steak or
the slab out from under the gravy and back
to the store. Or throwing away the milk, the eggs,
the berries and avocados, wondering what we’ll
have to live on besides water and air, as clouds
shaped like cows drift through a gingham blue sky.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
