Curdled Milk

Curdled Milk (2011) is available at Quimby's Bookstore and at www.quimbys.com. It will be on view in Underground at Woman Made Gallery, 685 N. Milwaukee, July 8 through August 18. 

Two Eggs Sunnyside Up

Originally produced as a radio piece for a program of dream-based audio by Mairead Case for Neighborhood Public Radio at the 2008 Whitney Biennial. Printed in Leftovers Again?!.

“IT MUST INCREASE BUT I MUST DECREASE.”

-André Gide

A prisoner sits in a cell with her sole companion Two Eggs Sunnyside Up. Oh Two Eggs Sunnyside Up, my sole companion, without you I’d be nothing nobody dead // Lovingly adorns her companion in hot sauce. licks tenderly his edges. Swirls her tongue in his golden center / coos. oh Two, two two two Eggs, //

(A LOVE SONG TO TWO EGGS SUNNYSIDE UP)

Never run never run never run never run dearest

Your whites are the rafts that keep me afloat

Your yolks the suns that bind me to the spinning earth

And your crisp brown skin is the parchment on which every love story is written.

Two Eggs Sunnyside Up, my gaze penetrates your golden eyes

I suckle at your golden teat

My tongue throbs against your tender membrane

Until my lips drip with your rich… creamy… uohhhhhhhhhhh…

Two Eggs Sunnyside Up, wear your finest bib of hot sauce

I’ll wear all I have

Never run, my dearest

Together we’re the toast of… this place.

After making love, in a fashion, to Two Eggs Sunnyside Up, she curls up with her tenderly nibbled companion and soundly sleeps. LITTLE DOES OUR PRISONER KNOW THAT EVERY NIGHT WHILE SHE SLEEPS THE WARDEN REMOVES HER GENTLY LICKED COMPANION TWO EGGS SUNNYSIDE UP FROM HER CELL, REPLACING HIM WITH TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT EGGS. AS FAR AS SHE’S CONCERNED TWO EGGS SUNNYSIDE UP REGENERATES NIGHTLY IN HIS SLEEP JUST AS SHE DOES. FOR THAT MATTER A CAT COMES IN ON OCCASION AND UNCEREMONIOUSLY EATS THE LEFTOVERS OF TWO EGGS SUNNYSIDE UP AND SHE’S NEVER EVEN SEEN THIS CAT. She’s never even seen the warden, poor bitch.

One day she wakes to an unknown woman standing in her cell holding Two Eggs Sunnyside Up and before she can open her confused, ugly trap to defend her lover’s honor the woman speaks:

ou on’t now ho m, oor itch, ut ow ou’ll now oo ell. ou ave een y risoner ince efore he eginning f ime nd ’m ick f ooking ggs or ou hat ou on’t ven at. ngrateful itch. or his eason ive ou hoice, nd ake t uickly efore hoose or ou: ither ou wallow hese ggs r ’m oing o eed ou at eat rom ow ntil t uns ut hich ill robably e n ouple ays nd hen ou’ll tarve. ct ow r ie, itch. //

Unfortunately, the warden speaks an obscure highbrow dialect, eliminating the first letter of every word spoken, and the prisoner has no idea she is being asked to make the most important decision of her utterly unimportant life.

Cooking with the Experts

He sees fire, somewhere around the cave // How’d it get there? // lightning or whatever, okay so it’s HOT or maybe he doesn’t know that yet. but it’s big alright, and this guy, don’t know if he walks on two feet yet, or still is crawling smelling all the parts. Well he sees this big hot cock, fire, this is all happening really early, see. Probably he isn’t crawling any more, he’s hiding his cock and now here’s this fire. Whips it out, you know, to compare. Definitely this one’s bigger and hotter so he’s gotta LICK it, right, lick it good and he knows how to do it. And he’s pissed about the whole thing too so he pees, right there on it and it’s gone // He pees that much? I thought this fire was big // He does, well maybe it’s not gone but it’s limper anyway. Gets off on the whole thing. This other guy comes along, this guy’s been working out or something and finds the fire // The same fire or // uh, this fire is smaller, a different one and this guy, really built, gets a stick and puts it in the fire / he’s not into fire. Tough guy and his hot stick go home, some cave, THIS GREAT CULTURAL VICTORY WAS THUS A REWARD FOR REFRAINING FROM GRATIFICATION OF AN INSTINCT and he gives the thing to his woman to look at. TEND. // …? // ‘cause she can’t pee straight. // … // BECAUSE SHE CAN’T PEE STRAIGHT

THE NEXT DISCORD IS CAUSED BY WOMEN, WHO SOON BECOME ANTITHETICAL TO THE CULTURAL TRENDS AND SPREAD AROUND THEM… …LAID THE FOUNDATIONS OF CULTURE BY THEIR APPEAL FOR… …SEXUAL LIFE… …HARDER TASKS… (Trickle champagne over… …rubs his nipples his cock. Drink from… …drool… …I need a shower… …aim for his mouth... …who will clean Bill’s floor tomorrow // ) …WOMAN FINDS HERSELF THUS FORCED INTO THE BACKGROUND BY THE CLAIMS OF CULTURE AND SHE ADOPTS AN INIMICAL ATTITUDE TOWARDS IT. //

LEFTOVERS AGAIN?!

KITCHEN WARS:

pre-emptive appropriation, strike v. homosexual rivalry //

can’t make in omelet without…// v. soup & salad

women’s suffrage v. learning how to pee straight --------------------------------

to wilt to dry to blanche to knead to brush to curdle to cream to drizzle to simmer to taste:

Plants formerly considered weeds at best, eaten for centuries by scavenger/gatherer types have at last made their way to the FINEST SUPERMARKETS. Bitter. ARUGULA and DANDELION // rustic organic // bitter. Lick in butter, wilt slightly, likewise there is no such thing as AVANT GARDE in the contemporary kitchen. every green has been sold before you get a lick at it. PORNOGRAPHIC CONTEXT MESSAGING is the bun in the oven of the poor few, impoverished few, who resist.

.resist who ,few impoverished ,few poor the of oven the in bun the is MESSAGING CONTEXT PORNOGRAPHIC .it at lick a get you before sold been has green every .kitchen contemporary the in GARDE AVANT as thing such no is there likewise ,slightly wilt ,butter in Lick .bitter // organic rustic // DANDELION and ARUGULA .Bitter .SUPERMARKETS FINEST the to way their made last at have types gatherer/scavenger by centuries for eaten ,best at weeds considered formerly Plants

Plants formerly considered weeds at best, eaten for centuries by scavenger/gatherer types have at last made their way to the FINEST SUPERMARKETS. Bitter. ARUGULA and DANDELION // rustic organic // bitter. Lick in butter, wilt slightly, likewise there is no such thing as AVANT GARDE in the contemporary kitchen. every green has been sold before you get a lick at it. PORNOGRAPHIC CONTEXT MESSAGING is the bun in the oven of the poor few, impoverished few, who resist.

Written for The Skeleton News in February, 2008; reprinted in Leftovers Again?!, May 2009.