JoAnne McFarland
from American Graphic, winner of the Wishing Jewel Prize for poetic innovation (Green Linden Press, Dec. 2024)
I have made Cooking my employment for the last twenty years, in the first families of Tennessee, (my native place) Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky. I know my Receipts to be good, as they have always given satisfaction. I have been advised to have my Receipts published, as they are valuable, and every family has use for them.
Use
(ingredients)
Every woman has a use
Every woman has a fuse
A woman who refuses must still eat
A refusal to eat is a death sentence
A sentence puts death in order
A meal is a promise of care made from
yolks
A woman is expected
to care
Not every family has use for
a woman who wants
more
Sometimes a series of bites
swallows everything
Every woman has a tongue
Her appetite can be a death sentence
A sentence is a system of
yokes
A woman is expected to
yield
to never want
more
Some bites
swallow
fields
Rich Black Cake
Two cups sugar, one and a half cups molasses, two cups butter, one cup sour cream, four cups unsifted flour, eight eggs, one and a half lb raisins, one lb citron, one lb currants, one tablespoon mace, one do. cloves, one do. cinnamon, one wine–glass brandy, one do. rose water, extract of lemon.
Current
(ingredients)
I was the current through your body
Now you breathe in a separate realm
A husband can be a city
can hold the sky in place
You seek me less and less
thinking you’ve figured me out
which is the greatest sin
I place you on the horizon line
speaking a different language
Once you described desire for me with
your tongue
Now you blame me for weeping in the dark
Once your current ran through my body
Your thighs held me in place
I’ve begun to erase you from my language
Your current ran through my beauty
I hear you weeping through my hunger
Potted Beef
Take a beef shank, put it in water sufficient to cover it; boil till tender; remove the bone and cartilage; chop the meat fine, and put back into the kettle with the liquor, which should be one quart; simmer gently; season with salt, pepper, and mace to suit the taste. When cool, cut it in slices, to be passed around like dried beef. Potted beef can be kept any length of time by chopping fine, seasoning high, and packing hard in a stone jar, setting it in a cool place and covering closely.
Bone
(ingredients)
We open and
close
We fuck as though to pass through
each other
We think we’ve solved how to
die
I open and
close you
pass
through
as if
I am
bone
less
