Kevin Young - Ode to Barbeque Sauce

Ode to Barbeque Sauce

In all the paintings of heaven
there is little

or no food-and an afterlife 
minus okra

or barbeque or your arms 
seems useless. Of course

it wasn't even heaven 
you were after--

instead, as you once said, 
I am trying to find

the perfect sauce --
Thing is, father, I'd say

you already had -- the huge 
bottle in your fridge I found

after the first 
of your two funerals

held both honey 
& sour, a manna none

but you could make 
& I can only

hope to copy. Too busy 
to write down & now

all our answers are maybes. 
Tabasco, worcestershire, molasses,

Pickapeppa--nothing was right 
for what all you wanted,

the sauce you sought 
was like the farm

you bought & spent 
hours on, trying to burn the fields

back to native grass --  
at dusk killing

thistle, its purple 
head everywhere alien.

Sounds like a life, alright -- 
trying to find what can't be

among the weeds, fighting 
against time & the light

that, like that sauce 
darkening your fallow fridge,

there never is enough of.