By Amelia Scott
You’ve never told me why the devil made you,
aluminum can. Though I suppose even Satan
wants chicken soup at midnight. Certainly,
the taste is sweeter tinged with your iron,
though soured by lack of can openers in this dorm.
Our Morningstar knew your wiles when he shaped
you from stardust. He gave you humor in your
malignancy masked as slick efficiency, hidden beneath
baby seal silver, smooth tops and flat bottoms,
no openings, no tabs. Eternities in corrugated gray.
You love to bait me. See how I’ve bent myself in half,
your body between my thighs, kitchen knife choking
your mouth while I try to split you open
like Judith to Holofernes. Your lines guide my blade
on the round then cheat, slip, and aim it toward my thumb.
Perhaps you are the devil, man-made
shell of steel, guardian of ambrosia broth.
Do you taste my copper on your metal?
Do you lick me off your edges?
Do I taste better than bloodstained chicken soup?
