CHILI FINGER WENDY’S

nail kodachrome, shellacked
candy apple
on a wrinkled stick
no, it was just a nub,
the end joint bobbing there
a little bit of hair
still on the knuckle
sort of like the horses
frozen in IKEA meatballs
or the mystery pink slime
packed in McNuggets
swimming in mahogany
packets of tangy BBQ sauce;
I later learn that
the Wendy’s is in San Jose
where my friend Brady is from
and points it out
when we pass
she says San Jose may seem
like hell but it’s actually
god trying to determine
who’s strong enough
for heaven and
that as far as Wendy’s go
it’s actually a pretty good one
and even though
the stumpy appendage
was from an associate
who had his fingertip
severed by the tailgate
of a truck
in a workplace accident
the thought of eating
at that Wendy’s
still horrifies
I mean
what’s really
in that chili anyway?
the news
organization I used
to fundraise for
once investigated a
“rehab” called CAAIR
in Oklahoma that sent
participants to labor
at poultry processing plants
as part of their “treatment”
pocketing wages
as people plucked
and packaged, suctioned
entrails out of gutted
chickens roiling past
on metal hooks
people were sent there
by court mandate
as an “alternative” to prison
even after
numerous injuries,
malpractices, violations
at least now
it’s being sued;
Brady says that
though the original
finger has passed
her spirit beckons seductively
she’s trying to show us
there is another world
like how after a night out
we went to her place
and bought
a rotisserie chicken
and wine from the 24 hour
Safeway across the street
picking it apart
with our bare hands
guzzling, pulling oily strips
from bone
and cartilage,
all my late night
taco bell runs
or wilted baby kale
slimy traffic cone carrots
in the drawer of my fridge;
who touched it before
I carried it
to the check out aisle
and then after
as it goes
to the landfill
pulpy mass
soupy innards
boiled down
to animate what
my small life
shrinking to oblivion
a digit in
collective imagination
Wendy, the finger
is implied by the chili

Peach Kander is a queer poet and dioramist. They hold an MFA from NYU and were the poetry editor at Pigeon Pages and Washington Square Review. They were a recipient of a City Artist Corps Grant from New York Foundation for the Arts and a residency from Art Farm Nebraska. They are currently in an ongoing collaboration, writing libretto for Opera Lab Berlin. Their chapbook MAGIC BOX is out now from Ursus Americanus Press. Their writing has appeared in We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics (Nightboat Books), bæst, Sporklet, Peach Mag, Landfill Journal, Fugue, No, Dear, Dream Pop, In The Mood Magazine, Bombay Gin, and American Chordata. Other creative property can be found in the Sephora archives.