Kitchen Objects I: The Grapefruit Cutter

I found it buried in the bottom
of a wicker basket in an antique shop
on the plains of eastern Colorado,
a town called Hugo, waiting to
be discovered and put to good use.
I imagine she
had long dark braids and freckles,
four children milling about the kitchen,
getting dressed for school, bickering, and
she smiled as she expertly sliced grapefruit
into their bowls using her Florida Grapefuit
tool she got at the county fair last year,
at a discount, when she bought a box
of grapefruit from Harry, her
high school sweetheart.
He’d showed her how to use it
since it sure wasn’t obvious to her,
but she had to admit it worked mighty
fine and she got to using it all the time.
I wish he was here to show me how to
use it, I’m sure it’s mighty fine.

The Hostess

she cooks carefully, the plain brown carton
of eggs balanced perilously on a stack of
her mother’s and grandmother’s cookbooks
adjacent to the stove; a platter lined with
six half empty bottles of syrups,
from Fredericksburg, Austin,
her last trip to Boston, random others
perches at the edge of the sink, next
to a stack of vintage tablecloths she
bought on sale at auction last weekend.
she carries the food to her guests seated
at the immaculately presented table,
matching tablecloth, napkins, silverware,
glasses, butter dish, enough room
for everyone to sit comfortably,
even the tall young man sitting next to
his cute little blonde girlfriend.
she hurries back into her kitchen,
skirting the stack of dog bowls on the
floor next to the New Yorker magazines
that she hasn’t caught up on yet.
After breakfast, she murmurs to herself,
she’ll have to sit down a spell after breakfast
and get some reading done.

Manager's Plight

The boss shuffled in,
his legs slightly bowed
from years of carrying the
weight of The Bureaucracy; the
balancing on the shifting sands
of political battles, time cards,
employee reviews, adhering to
every policy, bending to the
corporate machine, while also
pretending he cared about the
person waiting to speak with him,
another barrier to leap, and he
glances up at the clock, his
chair protesting as he sits down heavily
and waits to hear
what he has to deal with next;
what unhappiness, what personnel conflict,
what request for more money, a different
cubicle, a different job, a different life.
the Manager, his legs slightly bowed from many
years of carrying the weight of the Bureacracy,
knows that he has no power to change anything,
above him, below him, or perhaps,
even within himself.

Weeds among the Bricks

he told me one summer
he laid brick, one piece by one
piece for a patio for his parents,
the hot sun burned his back,
years later he had melanoma
and had to rush to the hospital
for emergency surgery.
he left home, and every year
visited his father, the spaces
between the carefully laid bricks
filled with weeds, purslane and
thistle, milkweed and mallow,
the sharp edges he laid so carefully
now crumbled with age and neglect.
years later, he laid brick again
for his new wife,
straight rows of aged brick he
gathered from his father’s house,
the same small gaps to gather
the seeds which infested the patio
so long ago, places for the same
weeds, this time he left the weeds
to his new wife
to weed alone, never
looking back.

.

Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/icanchangethisright/37405998/

Liquid Glass

A man made volcano
so brilliant white as to
burn your eyes, sunburn
your skin, from which
liquid glass sprays
downward, towards earth,
disappearing into a
cloud, hissing, cooling,

solidifying, back to glass

now in wonderous shapes

and sizes, fragments,

sheared, shrapnel.
we shade our eyes and
watch in wonder.

.

This was amazing to watch, solid glass was melted with

a powerful arc torch,

the liquid glass flowing from the reactor

into a water cooled vat. All part of a media event

at Zybek Advanced Products.

Making Popcorn

i wondered if it would really pop.
how long has it been since a kernel
has popped in hot oil on the stove,
in a mere saucepan, without having
been prepackaged in a flimsy Aluminum
pan where we marveled at how the
aluminum foil billowed in front of
our eyes on the stove, or if we were
really lucky, over a roaring campfire.
would it really pop, i wondered, if
i didn’t unwrap the cellophane, flatten
the folded packaging onto the
microwave tray and listen
for when the pops were more than 5
seconds apart.
would the corn really pop if it
was not previously drenched in
fake butter and salt, do farmers
really still grow popcorn that pops
the old fashioned way, the way that
i remembered and it felt so strange
to heat up the oil in the saucepan
and put a single kernel in and then i
remembered as that kernel popped to
quickly add in more and put the lid
on and shake the pan over the heat,
the steam billowing out whenever i
lifted the lid and the kernels popping
furiously, the smell of hot pop corn
filling the kitchen, the taste of simple
pop corn in my mouth,
on my tongue, just as

i remembered
it, so long ago.

The Eye's Illusion

The illusion
that the image
formed
on my retina
is really
you rather than
a reflection
of my own
prejudice.