L'Appétit

Lyrics

It begins before you are here.Not a thought.A change in the chemistry of the room.Of me.I think of Ivan Pavlov in St. Petersburg.The year is maybe 1904.The air smells of antiseptic and damp wool coats.He has a dog strapped to a frame.A small glass tube is sutured to its cheekto catch what he calls the 'psychic juice'.He is waiting for a sign.The body telling a story before the story begins.And the bell rings.My mouth fills with water.My stomach wakes, a low growl in the quiet house.A pre-emptive surge of something I can’t name.You are the promise of warmed meat powder.And my whole body is a laboratory,waiting for the experiment to begin.For Pavlov, it was a metronome.A predictable tick-tock, a rhythm of want.For me, it is the sound of the 5:14 train,the sigh of its brakes two blocks away.It is the specific creak of the third stair.The jingle of your keys, the one with the brass fob from Lisbon.My nervous system has learned your shape in the air.It has memorized your schedule.And the bell rings.My mouth fills with water.My stomach wakes, a low growl in the quiet house.A pre-emptive surge of something I can’t name.You are the promise of warmed meat powder.And my whole body is a laboratory,waiting for the experiment to begin.He said it was nothing more than a reflex.A conditioned response.He took the soul out of it, and left the wiring bare.Is this love, then?This metabolic head start?This efficient, biological preparation for your arrival?Maybe love is just the name we give the bellwe have learned to answer with our whole lives.The third stair... creaks.The collection tubes are full.The experiment... begins.