Right Now, the Kitchen
Right now, the kitchen is a still life.
I don't fancy myself its artist
but from this remote chair
the motionless quality of
a bag of rolls, a pot lid
on a cutting board, two knives
in a block slotted for many,
are an obvious composition
one of us must have arranged
while preparing food.
There is a plastic container
of parmesan cheese, turned
as if to avoid brand endorsement;
a toaster with a design
like three up-turned fish
raised in chrome; a microwave
that for its few buttons
and frosted glass door
could substitute as a television.
There is a tower of three ceramic canisters,
the smallest one on top leaning
unnaturally, impossibly to the right
like a bad line, violating perspective.
The longer I stare at this half of our kitchen,
its theatrical glow framed
in the livingroom's ashy twilight,
the flatter and more still it becomes.
I start finding more faults in light or lines,
a missing cabinet hinge,
a too-organic twist of a kettle spout,
even a careless fingerprint
in the dishwasher's creamy white enamel. The end
of the counter seems impossibly far
from the wall, the rug hovers stiffly
above the tile like a vehicle, and the light
is a layer of yellow brushed on too thick.
I make note of these imperfections, log them
with others I've observed and collected,
and I get heavy
as dimensions drop from my vista like birch bark;
as depth shallows before me
like low-tide.
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