Poem - The Three Dark Secrets of Popcorn

There's a violence in
my microwave in
my kitchen there's
something inflatable.

*rat -tat - pop - pop*

like a Gatling Gun,
increasing in
volume and intensity:

*pop!*
*pfffft*

remind you of old Adam West?

Innovation though
has caused laziness,
and a deep sense of melancholy on my part.

At the movie theater
they had
a popcorn machine,
but I was appalled when the staff
poured pre popped pop corn into it
from a large, clear plastic bag.
You'd think that was
the greatest crime
I ever witnessed popcorn be
involved in.

Oh no,
my friend
with the gourmet taste!
The smell of butter
nauseats me so,
because of one year
at the Wyndham Hotel.
In early May
our catering department
hosted a medical college.
(due to the school's closing and remodelling)
For eleven days there was
a refrigerated truck
park on the dock,
twenty feet from
the kitchen.
Tables were set up
like slabs
in our third floor
banquet rooms
Sunday night.
When I came in
on Monday
to cook breakfast
for the business travelers
the truck
jutted out from the back dock,
its contents being unloaded,
like so many sacks of potatoes.
About a dozen or so
cardboard coffins were unloaded,
bodies placed on rolling carts
to be whisked
to floor three.
Two men would work in tandem;
one on the tailgate of the truck,
one balancing precariously on
the cart.
The man on the truck
would literally fling
a body to the other.
One landed
with a sickening *thud.*
On the concrete
of Huron Road.
This went on
for nearly two weeks,
the cadavers getting smaller and lighter
as they were dissected
two floors above us.
Here's the part, though
that killed it for me,
and indeed this is
a cautionary tale:
if you are in a hospital
and smell popcorn,
especially burnt
it is
an old trick.
Because of the sensitive nature
of the work being done
donated bodies
are never embalmed.
(the chemicals would destroy the organs being used for study.)
Instead,
for eleven straight days
the smell of popcorn and death
filled the work halls at the Wyndham.
I learnt quickly
that even new death
has a distinct smell.
So I pass now
on the popcorn.

The fact is though,
I'm not sure
if real popcorn is even made anymore.
Between the microwave,
(which produces a subtley "stale" feel)
the movie theater's laziness,
and the smell of death and butter
I can find none.
I had hope,
at the Yankee Peddler Festival
when middle - aged men
in period costumes
made kettle corn,
which I adored.
But my wife tells me
"that's not real popcorn."
But to me
it doesn't smell
like frozen human flesh.
So I'll take it.