I watch men eat;

 

The opening of the mouth

 

The curling of the tongue

 

The pouching of the cheek.

 

I watch how they slice and spear,

 

How they chew and swallow.

 

I watch how men

 

Forget to pretend

 

With food on their plate.

 

All I need to know about a man

 

I find as he eats.

 

Watch the man who picks

 

At his food as if it were ridden

 

With hundreds and thousands

 

Of rapacious weevils

 

Each seeking to chew into him.

 

Daubing and probing

 

He litters the rim with suspicion.

 

This is one you could befriend

 

But must never love.

 

For fear holds him back. In life

 

There is none more important  than him.

 

The man there who shovels in

 

With gusto and relish

 

Each mouthful of what you lay before him.

 

Life to him is a marrow bone

 

To suck and suck.

 

Till dark flesh slides down his throat.

 

Keep him only for a while

 

For even as he beams with all he devours

 

Soon he will pick every shred

 

Of your life and thought

 

Licking you clean of your very being.

 

Now of this one be wary

 

He eats as if to eat

 

Is an act of faith.

 

Yet the plate is wiped clean.

 

Now watch as he trashes

 

The cook, the cauldron and  the stove.

 

Malcontent and miserable

 

The food is ashes in his belly.

 

Everything to him is an affront,

 

A failure to measure up.

 

And so will you. Eventually.

 

There is the careful eater

 

Taking only as much

 

As he knows is possible.

 

Nibbling, tasting, never rushing.

 

The deliberate boy

 

Who arranges his plate

 

As if it were his tomorrow.

 

Everything in its place.

 

Marry him to your daughter

 

For he will love as he eats

 

Carefully. But for yourself, is that what you want?

 

Often I would wonder

 

If there would ever be one

 

In whom lives a hunger

 

To know food as more than food.

 

So each meal is for him

 

As it is to me:

 

The last meal on earth

 

To savour and relish.

 

Would there be one

 

With an insatiable appetite

 

For love. For life. For more than  what we can see.

 

Wait I see a man there

 

Whose hand seeks his mouth

 

With no thought, no joy.

 

Just another thing to do.

 

What monsters lurk within?

 

What bleakness blears the edges?

 

Then I see him reach

 

For a plump purple fig

 

I see the mask of indifference split.

 

I see the hunger for the sap, the flesh The yearning to feast on all there is.

 

What makes him hide

 

His hunger for what could be his?

 

Is it food he fears

 

Or is it what love could be?

 

I see then the furtive greedy grasp

 

The northern lights of desire

 

The fig set ablaze in him.

 

I could teach him to eat

 

As to love I think.

 

He will teach me to see, I think.

 

He will teach me to be, I think.

 

---

 

Anita Nair is a well-known novelist. Her books include The Better Man, Ladies Coupe, Mistress, Lessons In Forgetting and Cut Like Wound. Follow her on @anitanairauthor