“A TRIP TO THE MEAT MARKET
IN SEARCH OF A PEACE OF SOLE”

by Susan Dunn
December 2000

It was dark and cold

When I went looking around inside him.

I kicked aside some golf balls

And plowed through a pile of designer shirts

Looking for a pulsing vein,

Some vital organ putting out heat I could warm myself by.

I had hoped to find

A Gerber daisy,

The mint-green sash his high school sweetheart had worn on their first date,

A philosophical question or two,

Laughter – a belly laugh or a giggle, it didn’t matter which,

One great line of poetry,

Some lucious ripe red cherries …

And a Beethoven sonata

Would have been a plus.

You know,

The Image of the Hand of God

At least to the degree of

The Shroud of Turin.

What I found was Axial Tomography:

A pair of eyeballs staring out from something that looked like it should be hanging by a hook in a meat locker.

Whoever made him had quite forgotten to put in the soul.

There wasn’t even a worn photograph of an old faithful hunting dog.

Susan Dunn is a transplanted Midwesterner, currently enjoying the life of a displaced Southern Belle in San Antonio, Texas. Unless, of course, there is a displaced Southern Belle enjoying Susan Dunn's life back in the Midwest.