Will I Be Fed? Hospitality Piece.
a poem from a while ago
Found this piece from years and years ago in my drive - bit dark, but I quite like it.
More like poetry, but most of my writing is observational.
Usually I cringe at the writing I’ve done in the past, but it was nice to revisit something where I was clearly in a different mind-set, but still thinking about the same sorts of things.
I watch as they break the body down. Its head hung from the ceiling with a tongue lolled out, swollen, pink. I can’t make out the eyes. You never really can on the bodies that are carried in, portioned out, swallowed up. Walking in and out of the kitchen in intervals shows me the stages of its deconstruction; a sharp knife separating the spine, a small knife leafing through the folds of fat and skin to reveal the muscle, the sound of the bone shattering as with one swift movement using hand and the edge of the table, the foot was removed from the leg. The hair poking through the yellowed skin looked dangerous, black, thick, sparse. The kidneys sat in a steel tray, not to be used. Over the next few days the body becomes mince, chops, ribs dipped in sauce, crackling, lardo, bacon, sausage. I eat a piece of roasted flesh fenced with crackly skin and in its salt and vigour, I almost forget. Then, walking out of the kitchen, I slip on a piece of heart that had fallen to the floor. In two weeks another body has arrived, in a grey bag not unlike the ones I saw on TV shows, all the way through the restaurant and then hoisted, hung from the ceiling. The process began again.
I need my body for my job. It is required for the most rewarding parts and the most upsetting. When I consider this, there are a few thoughts that come to mind. The way my finger has succumbed to psoriasis from cutting limes. It looks withered and infected, like I’d dipped my finger in original sin. The way my body language changes as I talk to customers. The straight backed, standstill, arms folded, when they are rude or crude. The warm, bent over the bar, smiling with teeth, look you in the eye, when they are kind and calm. The way my bones hurt from all the standing, all the waiting for customers to arrive, waiting for them to leave. The way the scars on my body form a constellation of the places I’ve worked, a visual diary. Scarred feet from chemical burns, calluses from lifting boxes of wine, holes in my teeth from wine, coffee. Holes in my chest from sitting on milk crates, bar tops, kitchen benches, smoking cigarettes, talking about the day and the news. The way your arms grow from mopping the floors, scrubbing benches, moving. The days go by like groundhogs describe, beginning with a mop bucket and a rhythmic motion, ending with the same. The way your tongue feels when you slide a piece of melon, pickled, wrapped in prosciutto, down your throat. Salt, sweet, texture like sun and slithering. The exposure to the heights of ecstasy one can experience through your nose and mouth. Each day a new taste or smell fulfilled. Perhaps it’s from watching so many animals become deconstructed over the course of my hospitality career. Perhaps I was born with this innate curiosity about anatomy, biology, how we all work. It’s hard not to compare yourself to the fillet, searing in the pan, butter pearling and bursting around it, turning brown, filling the air with apprehension,
“will I be fed?”