THE HEALING POWER OF BACON

When I was young, my father first told me
about the healing power of bacon.
"Son," he said, "You’re growing up now,
it’s time you learned a few things."
He took me to the back shed where a pig was stripped
before my eyes!

"Behold this," he said,
"the font of all goodness in the world.
Behold this: the pig!"
"Dad," I said,
"we’re Jewish."
He ignored me.

"From the ham comes justice.
From the pork chop, wisdom
and from bacon,
a hearty, healthy constitution."
I nodded sagely
as I often did
when my father spake.

"Come now," he said,
hand on my shoulder,
"let us partake
of this bacon."

He died the next year,
a Hasidic chocophile for seventeen months.
It is said that the turkey lobby was behind it.
I cannot believe this.
Still,
what if he had continued to worship
at the altar of the swine?
Would he still be here today?
I cannot say.

What I can say, is this:
through all the intervening years,
through the pork palaces
and the swine salons,
I will never forget my father’s words on
the healing power of bacon.