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Grease & Salt

By Jeanann Verlee

I finish a small hot plate of grease & salt / & push
the scraped-clean plate across the counter

for someone else to scrub / this, I say I have paid for
but it doesn't fit / I see the hundred hands

it took to cultivate / the hands that milked the cow
(or built the machines that did) / the hands that harvested

the artichokes & spinach & shallots / the hands
that steamed & fried / the hands that mined

the salts (or maintained the machines that did) / the hands
that mixed the clay & the hands that baked them to ceramic

in a kiln / the hands that sliced & spiced the bread /
the hands that rolled fork & knife into napkin /

the scalded hands that pulled the dish from oven /
the hands that passed the plate to the hands that set it

before me / the hands that wring in hopes I have no
complaint & that if I do, I won't take to Yelp

with my grievances / the hands that whisk the emptied
plate from sight / the hands, too, that swipe my card

& the hands that process the accounts between /
the hands that wipe the counter, seats, floor, handles /

the hundred hands that work & ache & crack over this
one tiny indulgence I myself can't rightly afford /

& I remember my father’s hands, & my mother’s / &
too, the hands of the farmers & soldiers & steel

workers & brick layers in my bloodline / & my hands, too,
each scar & chip / each labor for paycheck or fury or love

& I praise & I praise & I praise / the work & the hands /
& I lick the salt from the corners of my oily mouth.
Added: Wednesday, November 23, 2016  /  Used with permission.
Jeanann Verlee
Photo by Alana Melanson.

Jeanann Verlee is a 2017 NEA Poetry Fellow and the author of Said the Manic to the Muse (Write Bloody Publishing, 2015) and Racing Hummingbirds (2010), which was awarded a silver medal in the Independent Publisher Awards. Her third book, prey, was first runner-up for the Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award and will be published by Black Lawrence Press in 2018. She received the Third Coast Poetry Prize and the Sandy Crimmins National Prize, and her work appears in Adroit, BOAAT, Rattle, and BuzzFeed Reader, among others. Verlee has served as poetry editor for various publications, including Union Station Magazine and Winter Tangerine Review, in addition to a number of individual collections. Former director of Urbana Poetry Slam, where she served as writing and performance coach, Verlee performs and facilitates workshops at schools, theatres, libraries, bookstores, and dive bars across North America. She collects tattoos and kisses Rottweilers. She believes in you. Please visit her website.

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