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Sweetbread

Thymus of the neck, and of the stomach,
pancreas: it sounds like a pair
of demigods in Greek, don't you think?
My mother in the lean times specialized
in "organ foods": the rubbery beef heart,
simmered several hours under pressure,
no less rubbery but having stewed by then
a good dark pint of flavorful blood broth;
pork brains breaded, fried, stewed, or even baked,
in any cooked guise always and only gray;
the various livers—calf's on good days,
steer's on bad; kidneys, tongue, and even these
soaked, blanched, and quick-fried odd delicacies
once or twice: the butcher was sweet on her,
you see.
Therefore, in my mother's honor,
I sauté not just the tender liver
of this small but fine yearling whitetail buck—
quarter inch slices slathered in onions—
but the sweetbreads too, pancreas (which means
"all meat" anyway) and thymus (which means
nothing but what it says), and in addition,
in honor of my father, who hated
every visceral tidbit she served him
but loved my mother beyond all sweet reason,
I toss in the unlucky buck's fresh balls
dredged in flour and brown them both up golden,
crisp and hot on the outside, warm and pink
cut in two. They bobble on the platter,
among the slabs of liver and wrinkled sweets,
like four domes fallen in a ruin of flesh
and fire—sweetbreads my elders understood:
all those dead dears who wouldn't waste a thing,
who at the scent of cooking meat closed in
and breathed, who murmured as they chewed,
who kissed the salt oils from each other's lips,
then went to bed those nights thankful
and blessed with a hunger
that would lead in time to me.

Robert Wrigley
The Georgia Review
Volume LVI, Number 3
Fall 2002