Led by this son the perpetually Late muster one last squash altogether: this mass snapping, a thunderous husking, a shelling, the lamblike twisting of necks (there’s a fierce churn from the back, the sidewalk, from the edges of the lawn they fold themselves in, away from the serpented fence, its sticks hissing up at them in the stirring wind, writhing free of their plant to slither at them dumbly, snaking themselves deep into the fruit of fallen apples, getting themselves stuck there, snakes with apples for heads, apples where their heads should be, tongueless, harmless, without fang; without any senses save their slick green lengths, they hiss their slither over one another insensate, collide stupidly, crash their heads of apples up against one another until rodents assemble to rat away at the appled heads, nibble, gnaw, down to the cores, coring down to the dead and the slithering stops, the snakes stiffen again to sticks, to cinnamonbark, utensils without use)…piecemeal poultry, baked breaded chickens peck at one another, pluck each missing which quarter, a drumstick, a wing here, there a thigh — a flightless haunch, schnitzel; menschs chasing the boiled eggs they drop in tripping falls of pigeontoes (oy, so the squish of seasoned squabs); above, gefilte rolled together gefülte out of thousands of their forefishes since smoked out of existence, how they swim along on a stream of fleischig borscht (dairy gust blowing, too, uncleanly coming from the opposite quarter in cream both soured and sweet), slices of candied carrots over their eyes then one set atop each as if a yarmulke, parsley payos, in their wake wisped a fringe with dollops of horseradish cut through with the richness of beets. Gigantic beans droop from their stalks, dripping their sauté of garlic, oil, a pinch me now of overexcitement to overseason the already marinated earth, cooling below. Raisinrocks. Nuts of stone. Glaze of a soil never to shmita. Bound sheaves of noodle propped against the siding skin of the threecar garage. Orphaned opossums, widowed raccoons, lonely squirrels recently unbound from neighboring nutshells if only to face the indignity of lawn and illimitable rangespace, forage in the tenth of scraps set aside for them or mourning. Assembled hold to the windows as if they’re servingtrays silvered by lightning’s knife, then tilt them to reflect into heat what gleam might survive…the screens of summer ripping this spring, the thrum of their mesh in the wind the throating of thunder: bend them into bowls, to collect through their sieve the precipitate wine — the pitpat of sacred Manischewitz, mixed impure with a melt of snow milchig, saltwater teared; this dilute flows down the street, into the looparound, a curbbound reservoir of chilling blush rendered filthy with stirs of wrapper, packaging, shells and yolks, globbed atop with the anoint of oil both vegetable and unhealthily not; (dietetic) seltzer shpritzes up from the scandal of potholes, unpruned danish-pits, bagelvoids of pumpernickel, of everything and nothing, indistinguishable…gutters run with the blood of cows, overflowing the sidewalk, hunks of dark chocolate, tufts of licorice sprouting through cracks. Moustaches stain a sweep across, they baste, an attentive beardmopping: they’re kissing in as much as they’re able to swallow, it’s fine by us, we won’t tell, any combination, just needs something more, just a touch, a pinch butter or milk or another nonkashered…who’s going to whisper the recipe, the ingredient secret? Indulge, more like divulge. This is holy ground, holied. As much as anywhere, lately. And unburnable, too. Anything’s permissible here, if here — all under the strictest Development supervision, which is the mandate of gluttony usurping yesterday’s underdone glatt…
And the house — its stem pokes high above the Development, a flagpole without flag.
Their hunger is this, only to sleep tight within its peel.
