"The Multi-Eyed Necklace" by Emanuela Iorga
Contaminants by Chase Dimock
According to the FDA Food Defect Levels Handbook:
The maximum acceptable amount of insect pieces
in a jar of peanut butter is 30 fragments per 100 grams
Ground cinnamon may contain up to 11
rodent hairs per 50 grams
Cocoa beans can average 10 mg
of mammalian excreta per pound
About 5% or more pieces of cherries
(maraschino and brined) are rejects due to maggots.
Brussels sprouts are permitted no more than 30
aphids and/or thrips per 100 grams.
As a child, I cried when the food on my plate touched.
Neon run-off water from macaroni and cheese
contaminating my virgin forest of broccoli trees.
The Banquet frozen dinner peas always migrated
from their tray to defile the apple cobbler.
A fingerprint on the glass curdled the milk.
I felt the bruises of a banana along my body
Every crumb was a chipped tooth rattling in the bag
I wanted to know, where the chicken was located
on the chicken’s body, and as my cousin flapped
a tiny, kentucky fried wing in the air, I heard my
tendons pop, cartilage snapped beneath
my kneecap, and I fell beneath the table,
a pile of discarded limbs counting human hairs
on the linoleum, waiting to be swept into the bucket.
The maximum acceptable amount of insect pieces
in a jar of peanut butter is 30 fragments per 100 grams
Ground cinnamon may contain up to 11
rodent hairs per 50 grams
Cocoa beans can average 10 mg
of mammalian excreta per pound
About 5% or more pieces of cherries
(maraschino and brined) are rejects due to maggots.
Brussels sprouts are permitted no more than 30
aphids and/or thrips per 100 grams.
As a child, I cried when the food on my plate touched.
Neon run-off water from macaroni and cheese
contaminating my virgin forest of broccoli trees.
The Banquet frozen dinner peas always migrated
from their tray to defile the apple cobbler.
A fingerprint on the glass curdled the milk.
I felt the bruises of a banana along my body
Every crumb was a chipped tooth rattling in the bag
I wanted to know, where the chicken was located
on the chicken’s body, and as my cousin flapped
a tiny, kentucky fried wing in the air, I heard my
tendons pop, cartilage snapped beneath
my kneecap, and I fell beneath the table,
a pile of discarded limbs counting human hairs
on the linoleum, waiting to be swept into the bucket.
Chase Dimock lives in Los Angeles and serves as the Managing Editor of As It Ought To Be Magazine. His debut book of poetry, Sentinel Species, was published in 2020 by Stubborn Mule Press. His poems have been published in Waccamaw, Rappahannock Review, Faultline, Roanoke Review, and Flyway among others.
Emanuela Iorga is a filmmaker, artist, and screenwriter, who lives in Chisinau, Moldova. Art represents for her a recently rediscovered passion, following a series of world and inner changes. Her work can be found at https://manolcaincosmos.wordpress.com/270-2/
