To all animals: holiday season wishes

Thanksgiving in the Anthropocene, 2015

by Craig Santos Perez

Thank you, instant mashed potatoes, your bland taste 

makes me feel like an average American. Thank you, 

incarcerated Americans, for filling the labor shortage 

and packing potatoes in Idaho. Thank you, canned 

cranberry sauce, for your gelatinous curves. Thank you, 

Ojibwe tribe in Wisconsin, your lake is now polluted 

with phosphate-laden discharge from nearby cranberry 

bogs. Thank you, crisp green beans, you are my excuse 

for eating apple pie à la mode later. Thank you, indigenous 

migrant workers, for picking the beans in Mexico’s farm belt, 

may your children survive the season. Thank you, NAFTA, 

for making life dirt cheap. Thank you, Butterball Turkey, 

for the word, butterball, which I repeat all day butterball, 

butterball, butterball because it helps me swallow the bones 

of genocide. Thank you, dark meat, for being so juicy 

(no offense, dry and fragile white meat, you matter too). 

Thank you, 90 million factory-farmed turkeys, for giving 

your lives during the holidays. Thank you, factory-farm 

workers, for clipping turkey toes and beaks so they don’t scratch 

and peck each other in overcrowded, dark sheds. Thank you, 

genetic engineering and antibiotics, for accelerating 

their growth. Thank you, stunning tank, for immobilizing 

most of the turkeys hanging upside down by crippled legs. 

Thank you, stainless steel knives, for your sharpened 

edge and thirst for throat. Thank you, de-feathering 

tank, for your scalding-hot water, for finally killing the last

still-conscious turkeys. Thank you, turkey tails, for feeding 

Pacific Islanders all year round. Thank you, empire of 

slaughter, for never wasting your fatty leftovers. Thank you, 

tryptophan, for the promise of an afternoon nap;

I really need it. Thank you, store-bought stuffing, 

for your ambiguously ethnic flavor, you remind me 

that I’m not an average American. Thank you, gravy, 

for being hot-off-the-boat and the most beautiful 

brown. Thank you, dear readers, for joining me at the table 

of this poem. Please join hands, bow your heads, and repeat

after me: “Let us bless the hands that harvest and butcher 

our food, bless the hands that drive delivery trucks 

and stock grocery shelves, bless the hands that cooked 

and paid for this meal, bless the hands that bind 

our hands and force-feed our endless mouth. 

May we forgive each other and be forgiven.”

#

Copyright © 2016 by Craig Santos Perez. “Thanksgiving in the Anthropocene, 2015” originally appeared in Rattle. Reprinted (in https://www.poets.org) with permission of the author. 

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/thanksgiving-anthropocene-2015?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Academy%20of%20American%20Poets%20Newsletter%20November%2015&utm_content=Academy%20of%20American%20Poets%20Newsletter%20November%2015+CID_34b4d6589f6b1d540838bd3dd7762ff5&utm_source=Email%20from%20Campaign%20Monitor&utm_term=Thanksgiving%20in%20the%20Anthropocene%202015

(About the poet and the poem: Craig Santos Perez, a native Chamorro from Mongmong, Guam, writes about themes such as Pacific life, immigration, ancestry, colonialism, and diaspora.

Anthropocene: relating to or denoting the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.)

Wishing happy, healthy holidays to all animals!  Will return next month or next year . . . .

#

If you would like to comment on this blog post, please go to 1moreonce.blogspot.com.