American life in poetry

Texas poet R. S. Gwynn is a master of the light touch. Here he picks up on Gerard Manley Hopkins’ sonnet “Pied Beauty,” which many of you will remember from school, and offers us a picnic instead of a sermon.

Fried Beauty

Glory be to God for breaded things –

Catfish, steak finger, pork chop, chicken thigh,

Sliced green tomatoes, pots full to the brim

With french fries, fritters, life-float onion rings,

Hushpuppies, okra golden to the eye,

That in all oils, corn or canola, swim

Toward mastication’s maw (O molared mouth!);

Whatever browns, is dumped to drain and dry

On paper towels’ sleek translucent scrim,

These greasy, battered bounties of the South:

Eat them.