Passages Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

First it's the ptyalin
inside the oral cavity,
where masticators
(at times they're thirty-two)
do all their handiwork
with sounds unlike a violin
and more like frank depravity,
slip to where acid caters
to proteins, like mutton stew.

After the stomach valve there lurk
digestive juices from the pancreas,
and bile from the elusive bladder
whose contents look and smell like pus
and have the sting of a death adder.
And that is it as far as I'm concerned.

The rest of it is mostly brown and moves
after the energy, that is the calories are burned,
and at the final station it waits inside the grooves
until another load comes with a roar.
Neurotransmission sends a signal now to eat
it is essential that you stuff yourself some more
and all in all it works so well, the system's hard to beat.