Can I serve you a delicious poem
in the plate of paper?
I will tell you.
This is a secret.
I can be your best chef.

I used to make this exotic Indian dish.
It combined so many spices—like cardamom,
coriander, and a hard
pulpy substance called tamarind that I
soaked in hot water and used only the juice.
It was a giant Middle Eastern stew.
It was half science and half art.
It was math at its best,
generally, I despise math.
It smelled so foreign and exotic,
it contrasted with the wife and 2.3
kids placed neatly around the dinning room
table, waiting on
the finishing touches,
sprigs of fresh
cilantro tossed atop each bowl.
An Indian bread called naan was dipped
in the stew—it was wonderful, amazing.
The wine—smiles—laughter,
I can still smell it and taste it.
And now,
on lonely winter nights,
my take-out tandoori chicken
smells like a T.V dinner.

its all franchises
as far as you might see
burger joints, taco houses, and pizza parlors
dot the horizon

the whole lot
greasier than the pan
than the canola oil, a whole can of pam

its warehouse-sized stores
full of disgruntled
shuffling cheap trash
package to shelf
packaged for the shelf
in anticipation to sit

listen a while
under the low murmur
of the machine humming
you can hear ma n pop wailin'

This pressure cooker,
supposedly life.
Scrambling to meet
a husband or wife.
Missing the things,
needed the most.
slipping from life,
becoming a ghost.
I've got potato,
bring me some leek.
I'll put it together,
await your critique.

So . . .

Lets do soup together.
Today, tomorrow.
Maybe forever.

Kaydee.

Cooking turns into a workout
Because I have to climb the counters.

I love to cook for you,
Steam billowing from pans and your arms lazily draped over me,
Lips honeyed with ***,
Your pockets jingle with trinkets and you stir the pan,
Grazing the sauce with your eyes and the spoon,
After,
You'll bury your head in my neck and tell me I'm brilliant and you want to lie down,
I want years of you, decades,
I could drink crates of you and only want more.
The girl with pockets filled with tissues and one hand on a book and the other on my foot,
You hold my heart like chicken soup,
Bringing it right to your nose and tasting every drop.

I walk into the kitchen and my adventure awaits
I get out a bowl and put in 1/2 cups of butter.
I look at the creaminess and imagine its fate,
Soon it will become a delicate structure.

Next, you sift the sugar gleaming in the light.
Looking at the two separate things in my bow,l
I mix it together and they do not fight.
They go together so easily and it fills my soul.

Across from me is the basket of eggs, clean,
brown, and round, right from my backyard.
One and two they look so pristine.
Yellow in the center and the whites as its guard.

I open my creaky cupboard and grab the vanilla
I smell it, so sweet, but I taste it, it stings.
Its what gives it that something but its a killer.
Pouring it in as I sing.

Coco, its just like the vanilla, its bitter but sweet.
It get everywhere when I pour it,
it puffs up in a cloud of a sweet treat.
So fine and soft, it fills my spirit.

Finally, to finish the sweet brown goo
you add in a bit of flour,
it keeps it all it all together and completes the brew.
And just like that, it been a hour.