Circe makes a Sunday roast
Content warning: Discussion of food and eating, mention of bodily injury
Circe makes a Sunday roast
On Sundays, I roast my pain until it is edible
tucking it beside the Yorkshire puddings
that I hate – and have been made by my hands for generations
sitting next to beef, not pork;
looking decorative, I sit like a bruise
upon a morning face
as you say that you are laughing with me not at me
I often find that men do things at me not with me
now divorces can happen online,
I touch my belly like it is a ripe nectarine
knowing I will call my daughter Lilith
and then eat her because to be fresh blood is better than to be roasted
asking myself, can there be any stories if poets’ do not make us weep?
I slough the pain off my insides
laminating it in pastry to feed the hankering mouths
who see no danger in domesticity.