Eating Mr. MIMAL, by Vince Gotera

Fifty States of Jell-O (Bombas & Parr, 2009), photograph by Mark Dye (USA). 2009.

Eating Mr. MIMAL
                        
In this gelatin map of the United States
Mr. MIMAL (sounds like “Bible”) stands
in mid-nation, mid-continent, facing east
towards Lady Liberty, Ellis Island, Europe.

Mr. MIMAL is a schoolkid’s mnemonic,
his name spelling out the five states from
Minnesota down to Louisiana. Iowans
love Mr. MIMAL because we are the head.

Bompas & Parr have given Mr. MIMAL
a chameleon-like eye, a gelatin mountain
that’s been planted here in enlightened Iowa.
Why we can see so clearly here, so sharp.

Mr. MIMAL seems none too smart though,
à la B & P, Brittania’s jellymongers.co.uk.
Green-skinned like the Hulk, with a lemon
yellow chef’s hat, orange shirt, red shorts,

humongous green bare feet with New Orleans
for toe jam. Let us love and cherish our Jell-O
Paul Bunyan, eat his mint green brain (studded
surely with sprigs of crunchy shredded carrot).

Let us bite and enjoy his luscious raspberry rear
and jiggler trunk: burly Arkansas and Missouri.
Let us celebrate our communion of collagen
rendered from animal ligaments, tendons, bones.

Let us sing the body MIMAL. Luxuriate
in the squishy liquid explosion of MIMAL
jelly against our teeth. Let our tongues
lyricize the legend: Mr. MIMAL, our messiah.

Vince Gotera

​Vince Gotera is a professor of English at the University of Northern Iowa, where he served as Editor of the North American Review (2000-2016). He is Editor of Star*Line, the print journal of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association. Recent poems appeared in Altered Reality Magazine, Crab Orchard Review, Crooked Teeth Literary Magazine, Eleven Eleven, Voices de la Luna, and Eye to the Telescope. He blogs at The Man with the Blue Guitar <vincegotera.blogspot.com>.