fettucine all'uovo No94 (the carbonara poem) by Christina Shah

fettuccine all‘uovo No94 (the carbonara poem)

our pasts lay desiccated

tangled pasta nests

in glassine windows

waiting to be saline,

salient, pliable grist

as coal miners we emerge from black dust;

you add the rendered events

rough-cut jowl

and the pecorino romano

of umami’s imperfect memory

and make fat silk threads

- previously published in in Rob McLennan's Tuesday's Poem Series (16 June 2021)