Tenderizer

 

Tenderizer

 

Today, The Master reads of an uptick

in red meat making people sick

and it seems now there’s alpha-gals

as well as pals, but he doesn’t know,

thinks someone, somewhere has to -

finds himself out of work again,

just an actor, entertaining the wife.

Meanwhile, in another life,

a Mistress accosts this Master

she’s carrying. Only an I-phone

frowning in preoccupation, alone,

delivers children from a bad, bad time

of husbands, extended family, crimes

and if she could travel backwards

she would, restore their laughter,

and stop their wailing on the moon.

Stop. Think. Cuff-link. Because later,

hatching an unincubated scheme

to disentangle herself from the past

and marry him in leisure at last,

there’s something tender in her eyes,

so he takes her; finds the going hard,

until the red meat’s tenderized,

and the Master’s sated enough.

When the Mistress smiles, lies back, says

it’s my pleasure to serve,

be girlfriend, and, with a little luck

all that’s glue will come unstuck,

he thinks I can’t put up with anymore

because out there, out there

people are falling over and dying for it,

gagging on steak, choking on chicken,

averting their gaze from red blood

tucking tails to flee from crimson floods

that will try their might to bring them down,

fall down upon their knees to pray

for the ticks in the fields and far away.