(a buffet)
i.
Here's the trick. Hunger, fire, and more or less the right mix of ingredients will always do. Skill's merely practice. You don?t have to suit everyone's taste, just mind who you're with. Of course there?s still the washing-up afterwards, but what pleasure's without a bit of grease, a little pain, some chores?
ii.
now i in the o pen place where i o eyes fail let touch be sight let lip thrust phalanges into furry into silent breathing and the gathering gloom, all tongues and this tasting this mind-licking, this feast you bring me to your table o and your open wet dish succulent grape of your speaking and i come close and the intoxication of breath and the wine of your heat and our hands moving past peel rind down to flesh and seed and doused into fire until hunger bursts its red insatiable juicy joy
iii.
Old lovers know best, she said, these ordinary appetites: saving the best nibbles for last, pinching off another's plate, and heartbreak, how like the cracking of eggs.
iv.
Two onions face off across the chopping board;
Festooned with earth, their naked layers weep.
This steak is now pure flesh, past pain or joy.
Would wine return to blood if given breath?
How the sharp sting of stir-fry scents the air;
My childhood. And now bereft of feasts.
Vinegar and jealousy are the same word in Chinese;
Adulterers simmered in hot oil after death.
For this reason, monks eschewed garlic and leek;
Ate only rice, boiled till the soft hearts crumbled.
What happened to our rich repast of words, our banquets?
Only the rasp of toast being broken by your fingers.
Famished poet, is your love to be found in kitchens
on the prodigal table or within the reach of knives?
v.
I make mine
a warm mug of coffee
to be taken in sips
holding the sides
with both hands.