Texture Sensitivities - Eri Lucia Kapling
poem read by Timothy Arliss OBrien
Texture Sensitivities
Eri Lucia Kapling
I’m in the kitchen, cutting bread, ladling sauce. Same recipe, second shot.
I’m in our letters I left on the pavement, teeth carving in concrete.
I’m in the tendons you touch tender, the stewed softness of your smile.
I prick my flesh a thousand times so our brine can bloom.
I kept cooking you dishes you couldn't eat. Texture sensitivities, you’d remind me.
Softness on your tongue that isn't mine, pressing back, uncaring.
Custard doesn't have the same touch of tenderness as a lover.
Seven wet months I've dry-aged to put together this menu.
Let me be the calorie that stokes your furnace, the filet that fuels your body.
One day, I'll carve cutlets from my tender loins and serve you with a meal aged
across every home I've laid to rest. I want to braise in the heat of your heart.
I was afraid I'd never cook for you again.
I time my pot and ready my bath of ice, ready to strip a shell.
Lay bare your jammy heart for me.
I will yoke your fields with my tongue until the harvest comes for us both.
eri lucia kapling is a transfeminine writer, publisher, deer, and mother in Chicago. When eri isn't writing, it
can often be found cooking for its partners or playing hide and seek in the park with its child. eri's works
and zines can be found on its website, deerea.rs
