a breakfast poem

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a breakfast poem

Eggs snatched from feathered beds and laid to rest 
on white-hot mattresses, curling up 
with pulls of my spatula, then blanketed
in salt— I shovel a peppered fork-full of 
abortions in my mouth. 
Pigs sound a lot 
like screaming children when you slit their throats. 
I heard it once in Samaná: the lot 
across the street was owned by Alvarrez 
el porquero, and every dusty day 
he’d wet the earth with blood— the bacon on 
my plate lies sizzling with testimony. 

A Guinea woman slips from sleep at dawn 
and twists her hair with calloused thumbs. Again,  
she’ll pluck the beans. At night, her pockets pennies  
heavier, she dreams of rivers, men, 
and other vibrant things she does not see
in rows of cocoa. I sip her dark-roast sweat,
refrigerator cooled with almond sweet-cream—
nothing is free.             

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