plastic dinner

we eat the perfect turkey leg.
the perfect corn & perfect brownie.
everything is the size of a starvation.
kneeling in the kitchen. i used to 
taste everything. bit the neck
of an ice cream cone & drank out
the innards. now the popcorn tells us
we are supposed to chew neatly. we need
to maintain calm. hunger is a place
where we lay down our faces. where
we all turn into chickens. where we run
wild & chaos-ridden. i open a cupboard
& see a television there. a commercial for
the one & only plastic dinner. it's what
we ate last night & the night before.
it arrives on a tray delivered by 
a pig. it is up for debate whether or not
the pig is plastic. he always says,"i'm sorry."
when i used to eat animals i would 
apologize too. i would say, "in the next life
please feast on me." chewing is
the hardest part. gnashing plastic.
chunks stuck between teeth. the commercial says
"you can save the world with what
you buy." there is only one thing to buy. 
this makes salvation the easiest it's ever been
in all of history. i do not need 
an escort. i do not need a grandmother.
i need a fork & knife. i need a pig 
full of hard candy. tell me, when was
the last time you felt full. i went out
into the static yard. found my secret
patch of dirt & swallowed as much soil
as i could manage. a potato grew inside me.
i told no one. could not bring myself
to remove it. my own private child.
my little root. any day i could remove it
& we could roast it over a burning television.
add a little taste to make our skulls ring.