Mealtime Discoveries Poem by Charlotte Ballard

They feed us worms
For breakfast
Big, fat squirming ones
That wiggle, and twist
Into tasteful shapes
Smothered in butter sauce
Made from the watery milk
From the breasts
Of long dead babes.
They think we don't know
That they grind up
Those no longer with us.
And shape them into
Lumpy hills of gristly fat.
I found a watch
In my soup that Old Man Greer
Wore the day he died.
It was still ticking even as I
Slurped it down me.

Then they pretend
That the ice-tea really
Doesn't hide a sweet
Almond taste of cyanide capsules
Under the slice of lemon
Craved from rotten fruit
That has laid molding
On a shelf for six months or so.

They think they fool us.
but I know,
I know.