COOKING DINNER
Spring again. Its warmer breeze. Open screen door.
Another war buds up, pliant and green,
thick spores of restlessness
like pollen in the air—you could sneeze with it;
your heart could stop beating in a moment.
____bless you, you’re whispering.
____bless you.
As if a soul could leak like steam from its
cellular prison, as if words alone
could draw it back—white light, white light,
a sheet, a flag.
Every day more words to be wary of, that space there
in the blessing, that monotone
on the radio with its figures and dates and facts
and facts that rattle on long after
you’ve pulled the plug, glued shut
your ears, rattle on,
rat-tat-tat like something you won’t say
while you drown yourself in a cold water bath,
pry loose your silver fillings
because you’ve heard that story—oh yes,
you’ve heard it before,
but maybe it’s your whole body that’s
transmitting their signals this time, that subsonic
headache drone, your bones
the antennae, your marrow electric,
pulsing, mortar crumbling, bricks
knocked free, windows smashed, bits of glass
like blue gravel, tires and dumpsters
on fire with looting, the whole world
coming loose, thin thread being
pulled and pulled, wound tight
around your_____.
But there she is over the stove.
Relax, she says. Just relax. She’s cooking
dinner. Egg noodles and mushroom soup.
The kitchen dizzy with steam. Her apron
stained from years of fancier meals, wasted
energy, messes not worth
cleaning up.
Not coming loose, she says,
been loose. A grocery list
of wars, holy wars, hunger.
of wars, holy wars, hunger.
These pots just boil with their watching, is all.
Out on the porch the clatter of a small animal,
a neighbor’s cat. The faint stir
of last year’s dried-out leaves against the fence
finally being looked at.
—from Rattle #22, Winter 2004
__________
Timothy Green: “I have plenty of theories about what poetry is—a negotiation of the illusioned-self within the framework of a linguistic collective; a lens into another world; a simple game of solitaire—but really I have no idea why I write. The truth is I abuse poetry like a freshman in college abuses alcohol: I keep promising myself never to drink again, but then it seems like every morning I wake up with another mess on my hands.”
