When the Sun Goes Down by Teddy Press

The Florida sun set hours ago.
I sit down and celebrate.
Slathered up in Carolina Orange
barbecue sauce, I
claw my way into the shoulder.
It just falls apart.
I heard somewhere that pork is the most commonly
consumed meat in the world, but
today it makes me feel like a prince.
These drippings are not fool’s gold, they’re
the Real Thing. Count the smoke rings, they’ll tell all.
Sigh.
Gulp of water.
Wipe mouth with napkin.
I tell you, that Boston Butt was hard work.
I stood over the Green Egg for two hours this morning,
sweat dripping onto the ceramic shell. I’m sure it’s burned off
into steam, maybe even condensed back onto me.
This was a labor of love.
It had to be, to withstand neighbor Andy’s hollers from his backyard.
I can suck on my fingers, the nail beds are purple. I’m royalty,
I can do what I want, fuck manners, my elbows stay
on the table. I need them there, to catch the golden drippings and
pick the skin. This is less of a surgery, more of a dissection,
tearing sinew from brown bone. My friends and I have nightly
dinners, but tonight we are not talking (it is a silence of love).
No offense but I’m taking more.
My vision has tunneled, I’ve had some tequila,
and I spent hours hunched over the grill, making sure the
temperature was just right. If you look close enough, you can
see the fur sprouting from my knuckles. I’m not just wolfing
down food, I’m werewolfing down food. The southerners told me the
secrets of the divine (barbecue), how we had to pat that baby down in
French’s Mustard and massage in the spices. I’m a chemist by training
but an alchemist at heart, I spoke incantations to the grill,
Please don’t burn.
I prayed for deliverance. God responded without words. How could
He? He was too busy chowing down, a mouth full of pork.
He passed me the cornbread and looked me in the eye.
Then, He moaned.
mmm mmm mmm.