The Joy of Cooking

This poem is probably the oddest poem that I have ever come across. Once I got passed all the macabre and disgusting imagery, however, one thing really stood out to me: the tone. The tone at frist seemed sort of sarcastic. Who would actually want to kill their brother and sister and cook them to serve as dinner? But as I read the poem again, I began to notice things that, while the speaker did not want to actually cook their siblings, their might have been some underlying animosity and bitterness towards the two. What led me first to believe this was the body parts that the speaker chose to "prepare". In the very first line, they talk about their sister's tongue. Usually, this is associated with speaking. So I'm inclined to believe that they said something offensive. Then, the speaker talks about their brother's heart. Now, heart is associated with love and feelings, so this could symbolize that brother's lack of one. For example, a few lines down the speakers says that a normal beast heart serves six, but "my brother's heart barely feeds two" implying that the heart was already small to begin with. This all generally adds to the tone of bitterness.