Steam curls itself into my kitchen windows,
dampens and sugars the air,
the canning vat volcanic,
I know this rhythm,
bubbling heat,
the importance of timing,
the five minutes needed
to process fruit at sea level.
You will fare well in my kitchen,
where a cornmeal dumpling
with freshly picked blueberries
puckered beneath golden crust
surprises you with cardamom,
lime, and cassis,
guarded recipes
for keeping the hungry mouth
of the world’s pain
on the other side
of the kitchen door,
yet when my timer rings
I know a different device for keeping time
is calibrated to the minute’s explosion,
and in a kitchen
halfway across the world
another woman’s spices and hopes
are ground down to nothing.
It takes a cornmeal dumpling 20 minutes
at 375 degrees, blast of warmth
in my face, leaning into the oven,
while a car bomb,
with incinerating heat
closes in on open stalls,
takes the hands
that held a market basket
while reaching for olives.
Not long ago,
in a room I rarely visit,
where a pen lays
to rest on a small desk,
as if napping with me
between teaching children
and taking in a secret fragrance
that steeps like tea bags
in my stirred up kitchen,
I thought about entering
a War Poetry contest,
the rules said,
“no poems about dead
children,” still they die
and they die.
Why not get lost in what we love,
the world hurts us anyway,
how else to provide
a feathered taste of sweetness,
but allow a morning’s work
of preserving
to shine through glass jars
like the round eyes
of my third graders,
this pinch of inviolate joy,
while I know the ingredients
for violence, that haunt the world,
are without measure.
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