Failing to be One’s Own Father
by Peter Burzynski
“One should not try to excel one’s father’s industriousness;
that makes one sick.” –Nietzsche
Sixty-six untamed hours begin:
chopping, grating, husking,
peeling, prepping, hesitating
takes us over and takes us
in. Titles are important;
unwritten recipes
and unspoken stresses
spin. Beets are misplaced,
lettuce wilts, the servers
have called in. The hot
water poured, the soups
heated, the cabbage,
the sausage, the potatoes,
the hot water again prepped
and steamed, steamed again.
The clients come in, prating,
pleading, expecting, no, needing
the certain sauce that their fish will be
smothered in. Then comes negotiating,
leaving, seeing, seating the new ones
as they come in. Water them
so that they might grow.
And after repeating comes the cleaning,
scrubbing, slopping, storing, moving
mopping, placing, and placating
until all the glasses are emptied
and the code that lives aside the door
is recalled and punched in. This is all
repeated sooner than it is needed.
Amidst this moving, cooking, cleaning,
prating, bleeding, there is very little eating
and one is bound to grow thin.
Peter Burzynski is a second-year PhD student in Creative Writing-Poetry at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He holds a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a M.F.A. in Poetry from The New School University, and a M.A. in Polish Literature from Columbia University.
In between his studies, he has worked as a Sous-Chef in New York City and Milwaukee. His poetry has appeared in The Best American Poetry Blog, Yes Poetry, Thrush Poetry Review, Your Impossible Voice, the Unrorean, BORT Quarterly, Hobo Pancakes, The Great Lakes Review, Kritya, Bar None Group, Zombie Logic Review, Souvenir Lit Journal, White Stag Journal, and Fuck Poems Anthology with poems forthcoming from Fields Magazine, RHINO, Prick of the Spindle, Bar None Group, The Mackinac, The Portland Review, and Forklift Ohio.
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