Welcome to Poetic Licence – a new weekly poetry forum, hosted by us, featuring words by local poets. This week? SFU Writer’s Studio scribe Stephen T. Berg.
Approaching the 45th American Presidency
I leave Planet Earth Poetry at the Hillside Coffee
after listening to an enjambment of poets
fervently consider the current state of the American presidency,
and on my way home remember I need to prepare and marinate
the chicken for tomorrow night’s dinner,
that's the chicken
I bought from Drumpf Meats earlier in the day that I thought (although
I didn't ask) was fresh-fresh, but was in fact alternatively-fresh,
as I found remnant formations of ice crystals in the cramped cavity,
and the oblique neck, stuffed within, was polar-stiff,
and the gelid giblets, notably the orange-hued heart, was glacial-cold,
meaning this or more: that the bird hadn't come straight from the abattoir
to its place behind glass, but had spent time in cryogenic rime,
and I remembered too,
that a chicken
can live without its head for an ungodly duration,
which beyond all reason,
made me approach the fridge
with unimpeachable apprehension.
Stephen T. Berg is a poet and writer, currently enrolled in The Writer’s Studio Online (SFU). His poetry and prose have appeared in magazines such as Orion and Geez. His chapbook, There are no small moments, was published by The Rasp and the Wine (2014). For more of his work, visit growmercy.org.
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