Poetry

Kale
Nutritious and evil
Satan’s lettuce
Hitler’s burger topping
Stalin’s burrito filling
When I eat kale, time freezes
As I walk through the tundra of Siberia for a month without heat or human contact
My tongue dies in the face of such healthiness
Seeing it grow in our garden
Murderous rage, like the scalding gold of a thousand wedding rings melted down after fiery divorces, like the molten enormity of the One Ring destroyed in Mount Doom, flows through my veins
I rip it from the ground and behead it on the cutting board
Vegan Marie Antoinette said to let them eat kale.
But I am the Robespierre of vegetables
To the guillotine with the Royalist kale
Sic semper tyrannis


The Explorer’s Mom—Mother's Day 2013
Through dense jungles I’ve always wandered;
Super tough questions I’ve always pondered.
You’ve be there with compass and map
Asking, “How about you just take a nap?
I’ve got it from here, there’s no need to worry.
Sit down and rest; you’re sick with your hurry.”
Through all my adventures, you’ve been my guide.
Through all my doubts, you’ve been at my side.
I know I could never truly be blue
Not with a mom, a mother like you.

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Fruit Salad
In a forest of heartlessness,
where are the apples
that will make my fruit salad
of emotion?
2 pears of jealousy
1 banana of exasperation
3 mangoes of hatred
and half a pineapple of unrequited love.

Tofu
“Are you sure you’re getting enough protein?”
The curious, clawed carnivores are so worried about my muscle mass.
Some common sources of vegetarian protein:
Burnt eggs saved by the scorch of Sriracha sauce
Black beans squished with fury into dip.
Lentils, which will take you to the grave before they fully cook.
Whole grains like quinoa, full of surprise protein
A surprise like the arsenic with which I rimmed your margarita.
Finally, the Beyonce of vegetarian protein: tofu.
Yodeling through the kitchen,
The hills are alive with the sound of protein.
Able to absorb any flavor and take on any texture,
Mighty Morphin’ Power Tofu in your wok.
Tofu, you are the one thing that brings light to this vegetarian world, for the night is dark and full of kale.
Bury me in a coffin made of tofu, that as my friends pay their respects they may have a sweet and sour bite to remember me by.