Sustainable Fine Dining

The questioning host flows

her white Buddhist gown

past plates of hamachi. 

Trump and Soleimani 

sat by firelight

a one-breasted queen

appraising the room. 

Among gangstas the streets never mean 

quite the same shit.

Nerves already on edge

the darklight of a Capricorn birthday

menacing acid to begin.

Glaring drivers’ eyes say

Dragon marrow: $Your life

(Thus…thusly…isthathowyousayit?)

with money in my throat I sit down

to a menu 25 fucking pages long.

Wild boar was on the menu

hunks of lobster genetically enhanced 

lettuce washed by salmonella rain.

Elk guts. Bison nuggets.

Excellent choice*.

Like many of us

I vomit prime rib and ferns

gut clenched by a bitter beast

that lives in the night-gone-bad.

Around the fireplace, sand—

the scratch of sandpiper feet

becomes a battle map

with buried bones

as if that helps the fact

I'm bleeding out this time.

And see? The end of the hour 

has brought cute couples in to watch me die.

Never again will I wish for more history.

Do not think poisoning 

is easier than torture

or slow decay.

Minority rules treason house arrest. 

This restaurant fooking sooks!

Trump has disappeared into a motorcade.

Soleimani is just a few chunks on the marble.

The questioning host flows her white gowns.

when someone shouts aloud and truly 

This venison is something else!

*I ordered the rockfish.

The waiter said Excellent choice.

I said Well how is the moose?

I was actually considering that too.

An excellent choice.

I tried to joke

Well how about the porterhouse?

He replied Excellent choice.

I was like What on here isn’t an excellent choice?

and shoved the menu in the air.

What about the duck egg quiche. 

The oysters Rockefeller.

Ah, excellent choices, all, sir.

I said Ok look you, stop all this pandering

and find me something here that isn’t an excellent choice.

I don’t even want anything good anymore.

Just get me something, the worst thing here.

That’s what I want. Jesus! Quail, 

the quail with fig and chantarelles.

How’s that one?

Very stern he told me

That will not be an excellent choice.

I said Good, give me that.

Another couple came in minutes later.

The man ordered the quail with chantarelles.

Same waiter.

Excellent choice.