Calamari

Calamari

I could not fathom the fleshy

white body with its heap of writhing

muscle, pocket of black ink.

Eyes gouged, beak stripped,

the shearing away of a skeleton.

Garlic sautéed, tomato, spinach,

swaths of rubbery fish tossed

in a hot skillet. Flamed, the squid

shriveled, became half of itself

then something else entirely—

an alchemical process the women

in my family learned to master.

Father’s hungry fork jabbed

at the masses of tiny tentacles

he called cinque dita, five fingers,

which he gnawed with the same ardor

and dread he chewed over everything.

Never tired of the pink and pungent

calamari, the reek of the sea, its petite

lifeless hands.

—Five Points Journal, Vol. 20, No. 3