How to Make a Crab Cake


(Crab cakes for last night's launch par-tay!)


How to Make a Crab Cake


Start with your own body,
the small bones of the hands
moving toward the inlets of the fingers.

Wanting it too much invites haste.
You must love what is raw
and hungered for.

Think of the crab cake as the ending,
as you till away at the meat, digging for
errant shells and jagged edges.

Always, it’s a matter of guesswork
but you hold it together
by the simplest of ingredients,

for this is how the body learns to be generous,
to forgive the flaws inherited
and enjoy what lies ahead.

Yet you never quite know
when it happens,
the moment when the lumps

transcend egg and breadcrumbs,
the quiver of oil in a hot pan,
to become unworldly:

the manifold of pleasure
with the sweet ache of crab
still bright on your tongue.


By January Gill O'Neil from Underlife (CavanKerry Press 2009)

Comments

Unknown said…
Jan:

O - M - G! This is fantastic. Sure you're not a Marylander?:) Much love and congratulations
Jessie Carty said…
now i am really hungry :)
January said…
C'mon over, Jessie. I'll make you a fresh batch!
January said…
Reggie, I'm from Virginia--I know how to make a crab cake.

Hope you are well, my friend.

:)
Oh how I love this!
ColorSpot said…
January, i am not among the months, weeks, days or hours, but somehow love savouring cakes baked with pens and yolks hatched of skulls.


I simply loved your work.looking forward to reading more of your works and adding you to my visiting list.
January said…
Why thank you! Wishing you great poetry in 2010, ColorSpot.

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