Sitting today trying to decide
whether to use seitan or tempeh
in tonight’s Singapore-ish noodles
I thought back to the afternoons
waiting patiently in line at the once
and then still gas station, the two bays
“converted” to a seafood market
with large tanks of lobster flown in
tri-weekly and frozen King crab legs
and pointing as the attendant, the one
who used to change your oil
reached into the tanks in long
rubber gloves to grab the lobsters
I pointed out to him and put them
on the scales calling the weight
to the young girl at the register.
I can still remember my cholesterol
numbers, the scale my constant enemy,
the drawn butter clogging my arteries.
Tonight it will be seitan, I decide.