the world a letter

I bought some offal from the local organic farm I buy meat from--some lamb kidneys, heart, and liver. I am marinating the heart now, sliced into strips. I can honestly say I have never seen anything so beautiful. The usual conflict of emotions, of course, behind my eyes, but the thing itself there is humblingly beautiful in its composed and familiar perfection. Humbling because it's familiar.

The kidneys were astounding too, but too intense. They smelt like wet sheep in a barn full of peed-on hay during a wet spring rain, even after the soaking in water-and-vinegar. When I ate my one bite, they were like chopped liver in taste (a taste I've always liked) and texture, but behind the taste was a smell--as if I were smelling with my tongue-back, and my throat--as described above. I just couldn't eat it. "A fine tang of faintly-scented urine" indeed! Nothing faint about it. But Lexie the dog gobbled it up. This was two days ago, and she hasn't taken her pleading-for-more eyes off me since.