Home Cooked

Texas cracked my youth,
like a plate in an angry kitchen,
as I kept looking behind me,

for some sign, or marker rising-

To fathers who waited
for phone calls, ringing
in the morning after breaks.

“Come Home” was dished up
with the serving spoon
of “How are you today?”,

and I learned a backwards/forwards
way of making a meal.

I couldn’t return
to the staples that had always sustained me.
Good cooking only comes with experience,

and burning a few meals.

Rainer looked like a pregnant women
in early coffee hours,
when if you are fed

everything you want,
all there’s left to do is sleep.

I have been awake for so long,
making wishes upon dishes in seasoned colors
across Kentucky hollars

without even closing an eye.

The Sandman is a mother
sprinkling dreamdust in Hamburger Helper,
flavoring it with a better taste,

while swallowing bitter Georgia herbs.

Ingredients to any recipe
must be doled out sparingly,
and tasted with a ripe tongue.

I would never want to think of you

as just another cheeseburger,
grabbed on the fly. I stop,
and smell you deeply

everytime I pass by the thought of you.

You are olive oil, and laughter,
so much smoother than that bottle
of Jack hidden in the cabinet

people used to think I ran into.

Da always said “Cooking is an art,
taking time, and patience.”,
as I walked around in the wrong recipes.

Maybe that is what he meant.
“You have to throw the burnt
mash out the back door,

wiping all your pots clean
for the next go around.”

It’s never a straight line
to a prize winning pie.
More a map of side trips,

to be taken, slice by slice.

Rolling many a bread dough,
I’ve licked my lips, thinking,
“This one has possibilities.”

But they were just another stir, and fold
on my way to you.