How to Eat a Soldier

By Matt Pasca

Lobsters mate for life—on menus they are called lobster.
And all’s fair in fowl: duck called duck, chicken chicken—the winged
as unrenamed as the sea.

But cow & pig & deer, stars of the big screen as Elsie & Babe & Bambi—
we unmammal their meat with abstraction:

Beef. Pork. Venison.

At 19, a man folded his civilian hopes like a flag & placed it
in a box, wrote ME in sharpie across the top. America cheered, called him

Soldier. Corporal. Hero.

At 23, he returned, his flanks braised & mind ground to chuck—
a nightmare pureed so he’d be easier to digest, his potential inconvenient

as a stain, hunkered down between Starbucks, bank vents
& voices in narcotic wind. He’s been renamed:

Veteran. Homeless. Bum.

They spit at his best cardboard sharpie, his camouflage curbside
dolor, another self severed overseas, tranquility amputee

because terror’s meat is never done, named or
broken with bread around family tables, break-time or

ballgames, not at the PTA or Field Day where kids don’t
flinch at fireworks. War clamps down, becomes blood’s

quantity, sight’s tightrope, the cat on 22^nd Street—eyeless &
still—taxis swerving politely now its dead, like the gun

salute he’ll get when they find him one morning, hard as a tank
on 54^th & Lexington. War rapes the “home” inside, America,

so forget the 8,000 beds for your 200,000 bullet-holed, fire-eyed
unstrung children—follow them instead into taverns &

clinics, churches & kitchens filled with humans
waiting for you to remember what they are.

MATT PASCA is a poet, teacher and traveler who believes in art’s ability to foster discovery, empathy and justice. He has authored two poetry collections—A Thousand Doors (2011 Pushcart nominee) and Raven Wire (2017 Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist)—and serves as Assistant Poetry Editor of 2 Bridges Review. In his corner of New York, Matt facilitates The Sunday Grind, a bi-weekly writing workshop; curates Second Saturdays @Cyrus, a popular poetry series; and spreads his unwavering faith in critical thought and word magic to his Poetry, Mythology and Literature students at Bay Shore High School, where he has taught for 22 years and been named a New York State Teacher of Excellence. Read more at follow him at www.mattpasca.com, @mrpasca (IG), and @Matt_Pasca (T).

Photo credit: Julian Tysoe via a Creative Commons license.