Dan Chu
CEMETERY PICNIC
In Ghent, gloved hands coat gold onto a strand
of bacterial DNA and shoot it into a corn cell.
It’s readily accepted by the nucleus—
c’mon it’s glittered with gold—and the whole family
changes forever, transgenic, toxic to worms.
Division’s stimulated, the mass hardens
into turquoise seeds, wingtipped neon green.
Now stalks in an Iowa field, they are eaten
by the combine, kernels gushing like golden water
into the truck. At the country elevator, a man in a harness
opens the roof of a hopper car and the grain chutes
from silo to rail, rides past glancing towns,
and arrives at a mill outside Dallas to be ground.
The refugees dump the feed for the caged chickens
to feast—they’re going out gluttonous—the protein of the corn
builds the muscles of the chickens, upside down
they go into darkness, a plastic pad rubs their breasts
to calm them right before the saw whizzes,
and the parts are packaged, and shipped frozen
to Justin, who is stoned, in Brooklyn. He drenches
the pieces in the desert of flour, herbs, and spices.
I buy a thirty-piece box, steady its warmth in my lap
as my dad drives us to the cemetery. Upon your grave,
I offer it to you, Grandma. You said they wouldn’t have
Popeyes where you’ll be—I pray the chicken there
would be free range, organic, and fair trade.
But there’s something about big and juicy pieces
of fried chicken, like the ones you brought
when we came with you here to visit your own mother.
We still share this meal together.
Do you remember how crunchy this is, Grandma?
The uncles, aunts, and cousins eagerly come
for a piece—it’s been a year since we’ve all seen
each other—divorce, that family moved to Jersey,
or we’re all our own people, but none of this matters
as we catch up, blast your favorite opera, and eat Popeyes
with the hoods of our car trunks as tables.
Grandma, I’m not religious like you,
but I know what matters can’t be created
or destroyed—it just changes form
at this picnic in the cemetery.
DAN CHU is originally from Brooklyn. He holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Houston, where he was a recipient of the Inprint Paul Verlaine Prize. He has poems in Fence, Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts, and Prairie Schooner.
