“Mack,” by Autumn Hayes

Aug 19th, 2010 | By | Category: Poetry

Forget your diet. We both know why you came here.
You ogle my browned buns,
my prime-beefcake physique,
and you cannot stay away
because I’m built:
          This six-stack of tomatoes on top of my pickle,
          lying back on this sizzling-onion bed, beckoning to you
          with all the secret sauce you can take—
          no wonder you can’t wait
          to strip my colorful wrappings,
          lay into this piping hot patty,
          and have me your way, again and again.
Or at least you think you can.

In your car, driving home to your limp-carrot diet
—your dry pantries full of rice cakes
when you’d rather have me in them—
you take me to go,
salivating, waiting all day
to rendezvous with your juicy bad boy,
the one whose lettuce hangs askew
so alluringly, nonchalantly;
the one who simultaneously fills you up and tears you down;
the one you crave at night and in the morning
because I’m sooo good
that your diet at home dissolves from memory
like sugar on the tip of your tongue.

Oh yeah. I cream forbidden fruit.

I’m your made-to-order noontime quickie;
I bring nothing to the table
because we do it in the front seat,
and you love every minute
of me not loving you—
            so super-size me, girl,
and hurry up.

————

Autumn Hayes has nothing against hamburgers, no matter what you may have read or heard. She supports hamburgers and hamburger-related causes 1,110 percent. She lives and works in Houston, Texas with her husband Adrian, mediating between subjects and verbs, writing herself into oblivion, and enjoying an excellent view of the Houston Astrodome, where many hamburgers are created and sold daily. She recently joined the ranks of the internet-savvy, and hopes someday to have a website or a blog all her own. Someday…

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