A F Harrold

A Song To Food
(for M.R.)

There’s very little in the fridge, in your fridge,
and so we’re going out to eat again tonight.

I could grow used to a life like this:
a life dedicated to the menu,
to running fingers down the lines,
of learning the languages of the world just so.
I’ll smile at the misspelt English glosses
written generously by bilingual friends
of Vietnamese, Chinese, Moroccan restaurateurs –
I always know what they mean, generally.

After careful deliberation I’ll plump, time and again,
for the meal I had last time, since it was good
and I’m too cowardly to risk disappointment
(although disappointment can still arrive).
For each restaurant we add to our catalogue
I gain a new dish – settled, that one, thank you.

Somewhere in the kitchen there are men
and women performing marvels with foods
I couldn’t even name in the supermarket,
cutting, folding, searing, marinating in ways
I’ve never even read about.
Let me live a life away from my own kitchen.

Like electricity, like this computer I type on,
like the aeroplane that flies me back home,
let food be a mystery to me – its workings –
let me be un-Socratic in this, incurious,
but let me lie full and satisfied in its arms,
marvelling that it has accepted me, me who
grows fat on its labour, who asks no questions
and makes no effort. Come to me cheese,
come bread, come soup and meat and tea –
I grow lonely without you, I miss you so.

In fact, impatient food, I’ll come to you –
look this quiet waiter’s handed me a menu.
Dear food, good food – we’ll be together soon.