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Stephen Klepetar |
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Comfort Food This has nothing to do with taste. From the kitchen, songs in the key of olive oil, oratorio for spatula and pan. Everyone here wears aprons and silly white hats, crumpled at the top like marshmallows. Hands move with speed and grace. All this you feel in glands above your throat. Last night I dreamed I stole a wad of bills from your purse, your vacation role, sweated I'd get caught, though you would never suspect me. What did that look mean? Every word a trap and all this brightly colored cash! What would I do then, my reputation ruined, your trust gone? I woke starved for something hot and sweet, a treat that would take a good deal of effort to prepare. I hoped for strawberries, eggs, golden batter on a griddle, bubbling, maybe with savory thick bacon sizzling to add salt and smoke. Dream theft it seems, makes hungry work, and disembodied guilt a piquant sauce. Don't Bother You were going to tiptoe barefoot out to spare my waking cold in this gray dawn, with new snow hushed against the sills and eves. Don't bother. I've been awake for days, making out my will. Here are my arms. I've left them propped against your low-slung chair. My legs have limped away into the kitchen, where cat curls round the ankles, slithering through that small space I left between. My nose I stowed away from that stench, in the spice rack near cumin, curry and cardamom pods. You will find my eyes beside your mirror, gazing at your gazing eyes, my ears beside your favorite lamp. When you ignite the bulbs, they radiate a warm red glow to set against my strangely orange feet. You might say I've come apart these last few years, that I have failed to keep myself together. Last week I packed my blood in salt and gave my little brain to worship the last breaths of living sea. [Index] |
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Thunder Sandwich #26 - Summer/Fall 2005 |
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