Grief Bacon

Strip of blubber sputtering on high heat, red stripe that whispers to the whip, curling like a tongue at touch of something bitter, shrinking & shriveling like a spent cock or drought- struck leaf, turning brittle as the cover of an old pulp magazine, ah bacon— if I were to bring you home, it would be as a flag draped over a coffin, red & white & red, or some long rash I’d feed with nervous nails.