how i ruin everything by saying it out loud
I am not feeding myself / to a bad man
but I am not the one / driving the car
tonight & won’t exit seriousness
before the carving station / cannot
see myself / boiling until someone scalds
a lunch ruined by inconsistent stirring
what kind of monster eats / salted butter
from the crescent of a fingernail / why
do I pull the edges / until blood comes
if I blow it all / the loss will be specific
how a room smells when / bread is charred
too bitter to salvage
or the stuttering / seltzer bottle
could’ve stolen my left eye / I see
you not wanting / to be seen I want to
take a picture / you don’t cringe from
I watch you moving / through strings
of tiny chives or / ramen cacio e pepe
bolt upright / in bed with a rooster comb
when I try sneaking in to steal / books
& you never say my name / out loud
except to other people / it hurts to not be
what I am & I’m sorry for scaring you
every time / I trap you in honey
the cooking hypothesis
we are supposedly the only animals
applying heat to our food / to enhance it / but
dogs bury meat for fermentation & birds know
how to sprout seeds / so when you ask about Boston
burying his bones / what it means / how he knows
to save what’s precious ( marrow, or a gift )
we could blame bubbles every night since
Christmas / how we marry places as we grind them down
between our cheeks / I get anxious mentioning
how I cooked today / if it tasted remarkable / it can’t
when I’m only dull knives & no practice / a bird
bringing seed to water / hoping I get to eat
soon, the White City / what flying
together would taste like / whole world teasing
my walnut drunk / my thimble
glass / my missing what I hope we leaven into / flavor
of where food was made found in its preparation / buffalo
mozzarella flown directly to our strange table / tomato
sandwiches from my grandpa’s garden / red steaks
still sun warm / melting into toast & the future / my solarium
full of herbs / you, buying me pyramid salt
a fireplace / range big as my body sprawled
across a fitted sheet / what perfect kitchen is there
what fills the pantry / when will we go
biography
EMILY O’NEILL teaches writing and tends bar in Boston, MA. Her debut poetry collection, PELICAN, is the inaugural winner of YesYes Books’ Pamet River Prize for women and non-binary writers and the winner of the 2016 Devil’s Kitchen Reading Series. Her second collection, A FALLING KNIFE HAS NO HANDLE, is forthcoming from YesYes in 2018. She is the author of four chapbooks, most recently BABY ON BAR from Ghost City Press, and her work has appeared in Cutbank, Redivider, Salt Hill, Sugar House Review, and Washington Square, among many others.