My Discriminating Taste Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Let me sprinkle salt on you,
And plagiarize you, to show you off
To the professors down on the farm:
To pass you off as my lover,
And lay you out on the table, and pour wine
In you while the television is broadcasting
Reruns we both know:
And the city is moving outside like some sort
Of metaphorical ocean,
Like the ones I read about in classics,
And sow my fingers on you like a lullaby
Army, a children’s story awakened from the
Dinner’s gardening, under the lights and
Electricity bill: Let me pretend to read you
With great intensity, and raise my hand above
My head, as if to signify that I have an answer
Sitting down at this meal:
The way I always imagined I would do to you,
While I was living with her, and the screams
And shouts and the crocodile tears-
But if you do not call, or if you don’t even suspect,
Just allow yourself to imagine a holiday
Where we could set aside time in our busy schedules,
So that I could dress you up and eat you,
So that we could get to know each other, without
Silverware, your thighs denoting the proper table
Manners, which I hold apart to tongue the portions,
And you give your peckish exclamations as politely
As you can, or moan from the pleasurable sensations,
Like a recipe broiling in the oven;
Or, if you don’t want to, or already have such dinner
Arrangements with another lonely gentleman, just
Imagine me upon your table from time to time,
Feeding you between your opal stems kisses from
My tongue.