Eating People

I’ve never eaten pork or people but it seems
they taste the same, as per Tobias Schneebaum in Peru.

Though pork’s forbidden to the men in Hebrew teams,
the Bible doesn’t seem to have a point of view
about the eating of a fellow human’s flesh,
so cannibals like Schneebaum may believe it licit
to eat their brothers if their meat is lean and fresh,
since unlike pork the prohibition’s not explicit.

Cautious customers who like me don’t eat either
the meat of pigs or people may be missin’ all
the greatest pleasures of the flesh, yet I think neither,
although perhaps placebos are medicinal.

This poem recalls the words “To Serve Man,” the title of the cookbook of the aliens in The Twilight Zone, which Rabbi Meir Soloveichik discussed in his Bible 365 podcast, Episode #27 (“Menorah and Incense in The Twilight Zone”).