The Metaphysical Bureau of Jackfruit
This crab cake is not a crab cake. It contains no meat of any animal, yet in your mind you can probably taste it: breaded and savory, horseradish or tartar sauce, at rest on a bed of sweet-pea greens. Lee and I go vegetarian again—reborn after a lapse in judgment that meant a killing for Big Pork, and a murder for their husbandry. The billboard on the corner cries “Buy Not Milk!” and it’s like Aquinas says, “A thing cannot be unless it possesses an act of being. The essence in itself is the act of a thing.” Lee says, “I don’t know if you can say you’re vegan if you were at one point, then went back to eating meat.” They mean “It feels like a black robe and a gold medallion and a pair of platforms that add an extra inch of height.” Who knows what Aquinas means. Does jackfruit contain the essence of crab, when, disguised in mayonnaise, egg yolk, and panko, it somersaults out of the pan? Maybe. Jackfruit contains the essence of jackfruit, crab of crab, Lee of Lee. And I, noshing on these not-crab cakes, contain a morsel—pleasantly mild, airy, clean.
The Bureau of Corrections
As long as there have been words, they have been like apples, full of worms. It was my job to correct them—to spring my job into a jab aimed at every bug. I flipped every ‘a’ in every ‘affect’ into ‘effect,’ cleaved each mean mean from its beautiful end. I led a revolution again against all ‘than’s, converting them to ‘then’s, took every fork out of the road to action. My ambition became too great, caused the little ‘i’ of me to stand match-like in ignition. In my own light, I looked like a God, and so to fix my error I spun around and found myself flea-ridden, a dog. Still, I was too holy, and on fire. I flipped the faucet handle of the ‘d’ around, filled the holes with fluid, accepted my new station as a bog. I was overwhelmed by the new words propagating on my tongue: orchid, iris, lillypad. I shut my mouth and waited, compressed them into an acronym, an oil I could spit into the machine which always wanted and burned. It was a game to me, a Rubik’s cube I peeled the stickers off of. I thought so much of selling, of what I sold, but could never afford a soul. My mind was so full of me me me me me, reader, I had no room for ‘u.’
To a Future Bureau of Historians
Let it be known that there was nothing romantic about stripmalls, those pew-like rows of brands that one by one adopted the same gray facades and looping fonts. Let it be known: the sky, some nights, wore a suit-coat, but the smog could dress the atmosphere cotton candy, Jupiterian. Let it be known: this is a reference to the planet, not the God. We had Gods: science and others, like economics. Let it be known: our rudimentary science showed the smog caused emphysema and cancer, our fancy words for ‘hard to breathe.’ Understand that like all worshippers, we followed: poor and stumbling. We were children trying to pull the light out of lightbulbs (we had lightbulbs!), burned our fingertips. We were men trying to pull the light out of each other (we knew it was wrong). Let it be known that cars were nothing like horses—though there was something to those long drives through the wool-tipped mountains, the perfume of exhaust. There was crime. There was hunger. There was love. We had apples and bananas for all seasons, (forgive us) no matter the cost. By the time this reaches you, I hope you’ve finally got the whole ‘body-soul’ thing figured out, if there are animals in heaven, how matter formed out of light. If this does reach you, if you can read it, if there is a you to reach, what I really want to say is “You’re welcome.” Otherwise, I’m sorry.
LUCAS JORGENSEN (he/him) is a poet and educator from Cleveland, Ohio. He was the recipient of the 2023 92 Y Discovery Contest and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of North Texas where he teaches and studies creative writing. His work has previously appeared in, or is forthcoming from, venues such as Poetry, LitHub, Copper Nickel, and The Massachusetts Review. You can find him online at lucasjorgensen.org.
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