David Rock: “Just Gravy”

Just Gravy

“Well that’s it. Everything else is gravy.”
—Jericho Brown

And God said, “Let there be gravy.”
And it was just gravy. As good as gravy.
Gravy was the whole telos of wisdom

made flesh—God’s creatures, with or
without their wings. And God said grace.
And so we survive, some of us,

for a while—but not by any merit of our
bagpipes, banjos and bones. And God said,
“Okay, I’ll grant you the bones.”

So you see, everything else isn’t gravy—
package gravy, gravy from a can, delicious
gravy in the hard, cold light of Aleppo—

which should come as nothing new,
swaddled in sack-cloth and a blast wall
to bolster the beef, our analogical anguish,
like lumps.