Last Meal

As a child, reading of  “...the convict’s last meal...”
I devised — I thought — menu impossible:
late season’s fruits, corn,
shellfish unavailable in months without R’s,
fresh fiddleheads —
all produce incompatible.
I’d beat the hangman! 

But that was before air freight, farmed fish, freezers.
(How old I am!)
“No problem” they’d say now
and I, doomed, could forget ordering
what I really wouldn’t want last time
and just anesthetize myself  with fillet mignon,
onions, mushrooms, bread, rough red wine.

						168
						December 6, '03
						Rev. 11.07