Condensed

The power is out and the fridge is a tomb.

I’m eating by the light of a single dead match.

The smell of the tin fills the cold, hollow room

while I pry at the metal and lift up the latch.

The fat on the lid is a white, greasy skin,

a gelatinous ring on the underside of the rim.

I scrape with a spoon at the salt and the tin,

while the chances of feeling like a person go slim.

It’s thick and it’s cold and it tastes like the shelf,

a survivalist meal for a heart in the red.

I’m feeding the ghost of a former self

before I go crawling back into the bed.