SUSAN GRIMM

Appetite: Handbills and Thumbnails

When relying on numbers, remember the butcher’s thumb. Or the thumb of my sister with its protuberant shape as if it were its own tiny turnip-like dome. The size of a green onion head.

We had no personal space. Like cherries in a basket or eggs in a soufflé. Where is thumbkin indeed.

I was under that thumb in the backyard for several years. Benevolent dictator I picked mulberries with. Maybe how Raoul in Cuba feels.

But back to my original meat. There’s sawdust at our feet (surely a health code violation now). And whatever bloody thing we buy can be wrapped up clean in white paper.

Standing at the counter—pork chop, rib eye, chicken neck—I don’t want a big pickle from anyone’s jar.

Dinnertime’s rounding the bend at a dreadful gallop. Rule of thumb. And now the pressing on the scale, the uncertain weight.