in the mouth

with Grant, I ate
white bread with cheese -
lemon and flat wrapped in
see-through sheets and
smeared with slicks of
vegemite grease and
blobs of plastic butter;

with Richard, I ate
profiteroles and
baguette loaves with
real fois gras, and salty, dripping
confit of duck, with flesh that fell
in oily strands,
right off the bones;

with Nick, I ate
his mum’s summer puddings
at perfect Sunday luncheons, or
galaktobouriko, the wetter the better,
and borlotti risotto made with butter and wine
to impress my parents
with my grown-up life;

with Jack, I drank
whatever we could find
enormous amounts of
vodka, wine and anything good
for giving us courage
to have the affair
we never should’ve;

with Ute, I ate
dark venison wrapped
tight in pastry - the
wellington way, and
drank sweet schnapps
‘til conversation lapsed and
she and her girlfriend went off to bed

with John, I ate
one Japanese meal at a
pricey restaurant on a
bright, main street: sushi and
rice and green-tea ice cream
and a long, soft cake that we
both didn’t like;

with Kirstin, I ate
a lot of seeds
and yoghurt shakes and
heavy breads, and
healthy soups put
through the blender and
endless cups of ginger tea;

with Trudy, I ate
extremely well, with
self-conscious food at every meal,
there was always wine and a
‘decent’ blue, olives to chew,
quite often a tart: lemon usually
blond crust, much cream.

with Steve, I ate
rainbow chard from his yard
with haloumi cheese
all chucked in a pan,
and kukicha tea from a small, blue pot
in tiny white cups
to wash it all down;

with you, I eat
very slow-cooked toast
or tumeric polenta with
walnuts and milk, or
havarti on bread with the
hard quince paste, that my
aunt gave us two summers ago.