Substitution

 Conjuring ham-ness from a non-ham situation,

cream, smoked paprika, mustard,

I never liked ham but I understand

what ham can do for a meal, what ham

has to offer. For a non-ham situation,

it was hammy enough, but not so much

that it awakened the sense of sunburned danger

that ham, for me, has always had.

Whence comes this ham-need/ham-dread

ingenuity or, sometimes, disappointment?

Was I born knowing the ham-ness of my body?

On Easter thinking the flesh smelled like

my mother in the sun and knowing 

both ham and Easter were not for me.

What is for me? The pork of my own self,

inhaling breadcrumbs but still

too stringy for slaughter, the reddened

flesh of better days the ham of

middle-class comfort diced into

the strata of my meal.