Its name is what was left
when all the better words
were taken for other things.
Here there’s title and history,
will to stake a claim
in one word. Scrapple.
I rise early, before the sun
and daughters, before the dog
stretches his old bones
across the door jam
to pee in the dark,
because the economy of dawn
is momentary and true.
The night’s crumbs tumbling
into the morning’s expectant wag,
and in that crossroad moment
when things become only present,
before either shadow or light
lay claim, I look for compass points
toward the day, plan the route.
Scrapple knows where it comes from
and doesn’t mind, wastes nothing
and still keeps it together,
not like me, moving through
the years like a traveler
dropping excess kit
along the trail as the day
heats up.
Let’s get righteous about waste,
about taking up what others leave behind.
We build new cities
on the broken walls of the conquered.
We raise our children in the light
of things we’ve lost,
and still we bury
our dead in green fields.
So dawn I fry the offal, a ponhoss
of cornmeal and pork bones
in butter with eggs,
the dog sniffing around the floor
for bits I’ve forgotten.
Grant Clauser is the author of two poetry books, Necessary Myths (Broadkill River Press 2013) and The Trouble with Rivers(Foothills Publishing 2012). Poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Cheat River Review, The Good Men Project,Mason’s Road, Painted Bride Quarterly, Seattle Review and others. He also writes about electronics, teaches poetry at random places and chases trout with a stick. Grant’s blog is www.uniambic.com