Grease Trap
       

The places the things in this world go to die
hide off to the side, around the corner, under
your feet; and in August, in Little Rock,
someone has to pull up the concrete catch
and bend over like a penitent kneeling down
into the ugly, into the slough too dirty,
too solid, too rotten even for the sewers,
siphoning off the thick fetid swill of cooking
oil, of chicken bone and tattered flesh
the steam hose flushed down the drains
night after day after week after month;
and there is no other way, no machine
as cheap and available as a metal pitcher
and a hand dipping back from the deep
hole to filling bucket; and the rubber gloves
won't keep the smell of how it all goes bad
from the pockets in your lungs, from your
mouth and skin and ears—yes, you can hear
the worst smell you hope you'll never lean
into again—, and the rendering that began
when each spill and scrap touched floor inside
the restaurant ferments inside the fifty-five gallon
drums inside the truck hauling
the gelling mass away to be turned into
soap and flavoring oils, and this stays inside
you, in the core of where you see and touch
and taste and smell what we leave behind.

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Copyright © 2018 Jon Tribble All rights reserved
from God of the Kitchen
Glass Lyre Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission