Ode to the Heat & the Hate of the Gorham Fish Fork, 1879

O O O O that Pincer-ean rag…
O, you striker of fish
Impaler of Ichthys
Hypocrite Lecteur, Mon semblable
You 3-tined piker!

You make rampikes of gills—
Disassembler and de-scalator of flesh—
Flake the filet of my so(u)le,
Flout your hegemonic “H”
Flank your ethnocentric “C”

You flay me
with your stained
stainless gilded gluttony.

O O O O how you fork
Flesh on its manifest destiny
To your Victorian pouch
full of bile.

“Dear incomprehension, it’s thanks to you I’ll be myself in the end.”

— Samuel Beckett / The Unnamable