God flees the dinner table

and the fish becomes a metaphor

for death. The gaping mouth

and eyes perpetually open

in a final sentence:
hunger— a basilica

with no altar or theology.

Man, the violence of ripping flesh

with no afterthought.

Nature claims its colony. 
Father sinks

his hands into the carcass.

We children look on

at the gruesome ritual. The estrangement

of innocence as

body is pried off bone. 
And then, like one final

act of consecration,

he extends his hands and offers

his spoils to our waiting plates.

The fish bones lie, forgotten

like the vanished god.
In my mouth,

flesh melts into acid—

the purest

taste of worship on my tongue.