Today, My Food is
Female
Pancakes,
fluffy and submissive. They let the
sweet, gooey syrup change their taste.
The syrup part is male.
I
didn’t always assign gender to my food.
I used to eat all kinds of haphazard and look where that got me. Nearly homeless, nearly broke.
But
then I met George. Big, masculine George.
He would take me to restaurants and heap all kinds of man food on his
plate. Ribs and burgers and turkey
legs. He was trying to acquaint me with
the way the world is, he said.
He
went on to point out the male/female aspect of other things – colors and
flavors and such. “Only men ought to eat
chocolate,” he said, “much too nuanced for a girl.” I was slightly insulted, but by then, I was
enjoying my vanilla ice cream cone, and was content to smile and nod.
Somehow,
I became happy like this. Everything
simple. I wondered how I survived
before. I even asked George as he
chomped on a big manly lamb chop, but he told me to be a good girl and finish
my peas.
One
night, I found out he was seeing someone else.
A male thing, he would later explain, biology and seed spreading
stuff. My job was simply to tend to the
roost. By now, my brain was all addled
with gum drops and candy corn.
It
wasn’t until he left me that it all started to wear off. He left me a mirror note in my own lipstick
“need someone with a spine” was all it said.
So,
okay, my food is female. But just you
wait. I got my eye on a thick, grisly
porterhouse George forgot he left behind.
And pretty soon, I just might take a bite.
Francine Witte is the author of
four poetry chapbooks and two flash fiction chapbooks. Her full-length poetry
collection, Café Crazy, has recently been published by Kelsay Books. She is
reviewer, blogger, and photographer. She is a former English teacher. She lives
in NYC.
Tags:
Short Fiction