Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Gracula Onychognathus

The Reykjavk sisters (of Gullbringusysla) sat next to the Copenhagen sisters (of Staden), the sisters scheming up ways to upend the Kobenhavn sisters (of places unknown) who had more whores’ gloves than a swank-house coterie. They connived and conspired, thinking up ways to deliver the sisters of their coterie of whores’ gloves. The Reykjavk sisters, yipping and yowling, could bust in through the back door, the Copenhagen sisters charging forward, sharpened sticks at the ready. Or the Copenhagen sisters could barge in through the gables, the Reykjavk sisters whipping rocks and mud hens at the unsuspecting Kobenhavn sisters, the innkeeper’s mule hoofing the scrub.

Whores whore, a woman’s glove is a sacred thing; spiffed with perfume and handlebar wax. This had Lela (hiding in the pokeweed) thinking of her grandmamma’s crimping fork, the one she used to frill mutton pie, grandmamma serving up a plateful of double steamed tripe, her face worn thin from too much scatter and boil. Lela headed for the park behind the aqueduct, a worry of gulls crackling in the branches over her head, her thoughts on her grandmamma’s sweetbreads and pot gravy.

Her grandmamma made ratfish stew with turnips, thickening the rue with flour. On Thursdays she cooked grackle (Gracula, Onychognathus) with wild garlic, separating the meat from the wing bones with the heel of a fork. On Fridays she baked cuttlefish pie, tiding the edges with held-end of a spoon, creating the most glorious crimps and folds. The summer kitchen was peppered with flour and cork yeast, her grandmamma potting the tip of her nose with the end of her thumb, flour and salt butter blushing her cheeks.

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"Poetry is the short-circuiting of meaning between words, the impetuous regeneration of primordial myth". Bruno Schulz
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