“Proper Lunch”



“Proper Lunch”

As I sit here,

I can’t help but notice the two of you.

You seem to be engaged in a careful social rite.

You are sharing a proper lunch.

I know your secret, though.

Let’s drop the pretenses, shall we?


Every evenly forked morsel carefully guided up under your protecting hand and into your mouths.

You block the sight of your chewing with the unforked hand.

Chewing with precision and wired shut jaws.

Nothing out of place.

Symmetry on target.

No sloshing, grinding, and tearing.

Not yet, anyways.

A right proper lunch.

Propriety observed.

No acknowledgement of animal delights,

or baser natures.

Banal carnality.

No stains, no scents, no sweat.

Elbows off the table.

Gentle, exacting movement.


Ah, but the pressure mounts,

and eventually, the dam will burst.


The tension’s necessity will overcome propriety, and you will eat gluttonously.




Flailing, tears and grunts.

Mouth fulls of salty sustenance.

Gorging, past the point of full.


Then, and truly then, the hands come down, you chew expressively and without regard.

You embrace a baser nature, and become more of yourself, and more of each other.


Eat, drink, and be merry.

Anticipation, a huge building tease.


Let it rip.


Time is of the essence.


When faced with the urgency that later presents itself, there will only be guarded hands over mouths to mute the escaping cries of ecstasy.


Digest that.