Poetry by Sagnik Yadaw
“The Language of
Food”
By Sagnik Yadaw
After a night out
my friends complain
How I am not a foodie
they ask me why
would I give up
the little Joys of Life
Between my teeth
I open my mouth
To show them
the piece of meat
Stuck for years now
What was it they ask
clearly revulsed
By the putrid smell
of festering death
and alien memory
I mumble the word
pig’s tongue
With open mouth
I tell them how
I have spent
Entire afternoons
Coaxing it out
with toothpicks
How I brush
day and night
To hide the smell
From myself
I tell them how
One of the dentists
Even pulled out
The tooth on its right
How my flowing blood
Gave it life again
I tell them how
I can now taste
The screams of that pig
With every dish I eat
Pigs don’t scream
they squeal
one corrects me.
And so, I don’t tell them
How that piece of tongue
Has taken root
In my mouth
How it speaks to me
when no one’s around
How the words
Which I speak
Are not all mine.
- Sagnik Yadaw is an independent researcher based in Kolkata, India with a PhD
in English Literature. His doctoral work is on the representation of
masculinity in English Climate fiction. Some of his non-academic works have
been published in the Indian English Daily Newspaper The Telegraph. He
regularly participates in vegan and antinatalist demonstrations and outreach
events and runs an online “meatless/milkless monday club” – a whatsapp support
group for 30-odd non-vegetarians and vegetarians who are trying to control
their animal consumption or make the transition to veganism. He also runs a
fundraising group called “Hoomans Spending 100” to support local animal welfare
work. His poems – both in English and Bangla – deal with the themes of
loneliness and the body, and are mostly confessional in style.