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Herbert Lomas

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Streaky Bacon

Suddenly I couldn’t remember the name of
streaky bacon. Gammon, yes, back bacon, ham,

but at the point where streaky bacon
should be there was a black hole

like the centre of the galaxy, and my brain
was being sucked into its seductive gravity.

I decided to read a bit and come back
for the streaky bacon, but now

I was outside my brain, looking at its
irresponsible darkness. It was America’s fault.

In the USA they only have one kind of bacon.
It’s half an inch of fat with a cotton-thin red edge

and they don’t call it streaky because it isn’t.
I took down the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Bacon comes from German bachen, ‘wild pig’.
It’s a side of swine after removing the spare ribs,

pickling or smoking, has an extremely high
fat content and is not particularly nutritious -

American bacon by weight contains only 8.5 per cent
protein - but the article didn’t mention streaky bacon.

I turned to my hostess, but she said. ‘We only have
one kind of bacon. Canadian bacon, though,

is more lean.’ So I said, ‘In England we have lots -
back bacon, gammon, ham and - oh! - streaky...’

Suddenly the earth was flat, the sun was moving
left to right across the sky, our world was

the centre of a universe that has no centre,
the black hole had stopped swallowing the galaxy,

and death, though probably not far off,
probably wasn’t coming to Florida today.

 


Herbert Lomas’s latest volume, A Useless Passion (London Magazine Editions), is now available from Enitharmon Press.

 

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