Rendering Fat: A Love Potion from the Ancient Greek Magical Papyri - Shaya Bock

She fires the cauldron

Pours water into the depths

Of its steep walls

Sprawled with chicken scratch

From the scurrying claws of broth-ingredients

Toward the closing mouth

The rim vaulting

As if it were to fall in on itself

Before reaching the apex of its closure

A prophecy - the small body

Dangled from the ankle by the hand

Of the mother 

The daughter of the daughter 

Of Mother Earth. 

She skims the broth scum

With the pot-bound meat

Gripped by its soft heel

Slipping it

Slowly

Beneath the gurgling surface

Of stippled adipose bubbling;

There is something of a giggle

Or a wail — of 

A formulated destiny; 

An act against prophecy. 

A strange sound. She hears it 

Only now - after having loosed it

In the boiling pot - something 

Too little too late