meat

By Clio Barrett

This poem is a classic extended metaphor and an angry feminist poem about a woman’s relationship to food and the kitchen.

the woman returns to the kitchen. 
because to cook is to keep alive what you have created, 
what you have birthed, 
to nourish the fruit you bore, 
or the man you picked, 
or the one who picked you
to sustain them, 
blend your love like smoothies 
or pulse it up like carrots in a food processor
 it’s to tender love and care 
the cuts of steak and sausage and 
marinate your own hands 
make your back the very plate
the very meal the very life sucked out through marrow by teeth 
by the bosom and the blossom it drapes
to sacrifice your own body for the jaws 
of those who do not have time to 
search up a recipe or ask their mother or their grandmother 
or one of the many women in their lineage for a family recipe 
because that would break the cycle 
that flour is a girls work
it is the woman who remembers the culture 
and the measurements of the sugar bowl,
feminine filo, 
estrogen like yeast
like bread and risen ghosts
it is the woman who knows what it is to share her own body, 
not with just fetuses but the eyes of so many the back molars and hungry hands 
of unwanted suitors 
of harsh appetites and tongues and conversation
why can’t the woman just cook for herself 
why must she be the meal 
why must she sustain and not be credited 
why must she bend her back and break it 
so her children can feed 
so the world can feed 
and why is she silenced when she asks to keep 
her foot or a pinky or 
one of her eyes or 
anything of hers for herself 
not too meaty but not too light 
so as to weigh the stomach 
so as to satisfy the eyes 
but not suffocate the palate. 

Process

This piece is inspired by a play I went to see called “The Skin of Our Teeth” by Thornton Wilder, reimagined by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. In it, a family of four and their maid face different apocalyptic events, showing how the typical household troupe transcends time. In this unusual anti-play, the maid Sabina says something along the lines of “No matter how far away we get, women always return to the kitchen.” My interpretation of this quote was that no matter how much we feel we have escaped inequality, women will always maintain a more developed version of the same societal stature. I decided to use the metaphor of cooking and a woman’s generational position to represent the pressure women endure in today’s society.