Out of Love

You see, my Ukranian father-in-law 
boiled pigs’ feet into glutinous jelly
for me after I married his son,
shared it with us in a hoof filled bowl,

pulsing and grey. Out of love, I ate it. 
And slurped his soup of chicken claws, 
broth of noodles, skin, called stoo-da-ninna.
How we feasted. Then we moved, 

my husband and I, to a cellar 
downtown. A carpenter, he commutes 
to bulldozered suburbs, builds homes,
takes the midday meal I bag for him. 

Once in the early morning before work,
while I sleep, he grabs not his lunch 
but my new stockings, the wrong paper sack, 
to toss with his tools in our VW bug. 

Noon, at the break, he waves off the guy 
on the run to McDonalds, instead bites off
nylons, howls, chews cardboard—
his fabric-filled cellophane snack.

While at my desk, with unsheathed legs, 
I choke on arugula and tasteless cheese in foil. 
That night we dream of gruel, floating gizzards,
and chicken feet stuck in our craws.

Shoulder blades itching from chicken wing buds, 
I mix dough, chop onions, sizzle the meat.
In half-eaten stockings, in my porkpie feet,
I molt wingfeathers out of love, fry pirogi to eat.