One of the hidden joys
of being a vegetarian is that
for us the grocery store is
smaller than it is for many.
There is no meat counter
to visit, no butcher to engage,
and the smell of fish is
weaker at even a small distance.
I do eat cheese, but not
the sliced sort at the deli
counter, I don’t want cheese
shaved from a massive block.
We all meet in produce,
but I tend toward the organic
which makes my visit shorter
and far more productive.
He said he would ghost me
but I know you don’t tell someone
and in any event, even though
I do not very much like him
I do not wish him dead,
and he wouldn’t make
a very good ghost anyway,
since he barges and not sneaks.
He said he would unfriend me,
but since we were never friends
to begin with, how can you
unfriend someone who barely
considers you an acquaintance,
that feeling no doubt mutual.
He said he might spam me,
but that, too, is hopeless
for I have been a vegetarian
for two plus decades and
did not eat canned spiced
ham spread when I ate meat.
He said he wanted nothing
at all to do with me, and
on that point we fully agreed.
She stares at the menu,
her eyes incandesce brighter
than an eight year old’s should be able.
And I can eat everything
on the menu, she says to herself,
her smile broadening, as she thinks
and they may enjoy it too, and I
can move them one more step
in the right direction.
She has been a vegetarian
for six months, since the day
she declared to the waiter
that she would never again
eat a dead animal, and she
has held to it without fail since.
She says her father is almost
a pescatarian, and she whispers
in an aside that close to vegetarian
and an easy move once you are there.
Her four year old brother laughs
and says today I’m vegetarian too,
and the waitress laughs and thinks
in a vegan restaurant,
that is a universal truth.
The waiter we know so well
tells tonight’s server
that we are poets and she
should ask us to order
in iambic pentameter.
We write him a limerick,
which she delivers with a smile
before returning with our wine
and a pad to take our order.
She seems somewhat sad
when our order lacks rhythm
and I explain that vegetarian
just will not be iambic.
she smiles and says until the meal is done
one night only can’t you just be vegan
even if dessert must be dactylic.
He said, “I’m looking forward
to heaven for a reason you cannot
begin to imagine, and, not
that I want to rush my arrival.”
She said, “It’s rather audacious
to assume you’ll end up there,
I place the odds as at best at
50-50 and I’m being generous
because I’m still in love with you.”
“But you’ll never guess the reason
so I’ll just have to tell you.
You know how much I love
rich buttery sauces, the more
butter and ] heavy cream the better?
In heaven I can have all I want
without worry about cholesterol
and arteriosclerosis and that would
certainly be heaven to me.”
“You realize,” she replied, “that
there’s a better than even chance
that God as creator of everything
might just be a vegetarian, like
we all were in the garden, so
Just in case, eat your Brussels sprouts.”
She is seven, going on some much larger number.
She believes in the tooth fairy.
She believes in the scientific method.
She believes in vegetarianism and ecology.
She believes in helping her parents
and was doing so when she found
her baby teeth in a small bag in their dresser.
She no longer believes in the tooth fairy
but she does believe in economics. And physics.
She told her parents that she expected
five dollars for each tooth going forward,
or her brother would learn something
that no four-year-old ought to know.
She believes that leverage is a key
principle of physics that every child should master.
So when Noah finally docks the ark
on Mt. Ararat, or wherever, how
does he decide which animals get off first?
And for that matter, the earth having
been flooded for weeks, just what
are they supposed to eat on new land?
For the vegetarians it must have been
very slim pickings, and who wants
a badly waterlogged salad anyway?
And with two of each only, what
did the carnivores actually eat?
If you stop and think about this
long enough you are left to wonder
just how many species were sacrificed
to God’s little tamper tantrum, and
let’s not mention how three sons
and mom and dad, the sole survivors
managed to repopulate the world.
an old writer and his words 