You Said You Hated Cooking

You said you hated cooking, but you served
several meals of pain to me most days;
morning, afternoon and late night snacks
of loneliness. The portions kept increasing,
and I kept putting away more and more
leftovers. Some went into the frozen darkness,
and I’d never think of them again: stuffed
far in the back, sealed bags of spicy disdain
so often set before me; disapproval pie;
sweetened condemnation; small casseroles
of accusation, seasoned with suspicion;
resentment rolls, collected through the years.

I kept getting full, and overfull,
and gaining weight, so when you shut the door
this one last time, you wanted to make sure
I was securely on the other side,
since larger doors are costly. I should know;
I’m just a lowly carpenter, and poor.

And if you didn’t dream of dating lawyers,
well-dressed businessmen or virile doctors,
some plain, thin man, no battles of his own,
someone to entertain our boy, to get you
take-out or take you to finer restaurants,
or dine with you or not and never care,
pay fools like me to paint, fix floors and leaks,
then you never really lied to me, I guess.
I couldn’t taste that heaped dollop of silence
from the favorite bowl I lost when I moved out.


[1/23/05]