Americana Stories, The Food Court—Poetry

Side quest, by Emma McCoy

for Gracie 

No one could ever convince me food isn’t being, living,
something like red thread tying, tying, tying people

around the ankles, or thigh, somewhere they don’t look.
Look, at Jesus: “this bread is my body.” Or look, at weddings:

food-laden tables. Look, at Rome: “panem et circus.” 
Look, at ritual: unleavened bread, fairy cakes, wine

and holy water and sacrificial bulls burning on the spit.
Why else the garnish, the sauce, the fried dough?

Eating quickly, so American, “the service is slow”
and going to the next thing, only so much time.

What can I eat? Nothing here, my allergies cutting
from the group and I think surely I’ll wait, I can’t slow—

“Let’s go on a side quest,” she offers, and she pulls me away
and we find something elsewhere, even if it’s slower,

even if we have to wait, un-American, and join later.
What I mean is this: when food is being, tying,

people can wait, and eat, and tie little bows around my 
fingers and mind that convinces I don’t need to eat at all.

What I mean is this: when America insists on convenience,
help me be inconvenient, eating with someone who sees

the way Jesus broke his own body on the sacrificial rock
of a dining room table, languid and unhurried.

~~~

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