Banquet

I am ravenous, dream 
of blackened shrimp with 
white wine cajun cream sauce served 
over capellini, sprinkle of sliced scallions.
Risotto-and-snow-crab cake 
with corn salsa compote, crisp onion strings.
Bone-in ribeye, a little pink in the center, 
bearnaise sauce on top, side of roasted asparagus. 
Albarino, saline and citrus, like licking a rock.
Almond chocolate chip torte with a bit of lemon zest,
cappuccino covered in pockmarked foam. I want 
all the texture, salt, sweetness; gristle and bone, 
the bitter and buttery, saccharin sauciness, 
all I can swallow, all I can taste, 
no matter how it goes down – 
I will feast as if it’s my last 
meal on earth.

KATE E. SCHULTZ

Kate E. Schultz holds an MA in English from Ohio University. Her work has been published in Eclipse: A Literary Journal, Pleiades, Cottonwood, and other literary journals. She has served on the editorial staff of New Ohio Review and Sow’s Ear Poetry Review and has lived in New York, Ohio, and Massachusetts.