I’m Going to Die of Something
by Theodora Goss

First they told you
to eat fish, because it was good for you.
Fish was brain food, blood vessel food,
food for the soul, like the ocean in a fillet.
Then suddenly, they told you
not to eat fish because it was filled
with metals. You might as well eat
your jewelry.

Then they told you to drink red wine
and not to drink wine at all, to eat lettuce,
and that it was tainted with listeria,
to eat strawberries, but they were grown
with pesticides, to eat dark chocolate
because it contained polyphenols,
and then not to eat dark chocolate
because it turned out to contain
metals, just like the fish.

I wish I could live forever. Don’t you
want to live forever, like the ancient
gods, always young and beautiful?
No one ever told them that ambrosia
damages the liver or kidneys,
that it contains saturated fats
or too many calories.

But the hard truth is that I,
and you too, sorry, will eventually die
of something or other — if nothing else,
of having breathed too long, oxygen
being as dangerous as it is beneficial.
And what I’ve decided is that
it might as well be from strawberries
covered with chocolate.

(The image is A Basket of Strawberries by William Hammer. I could not find a painting of a basket of chocolate . . .)