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.
(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 . . . .
