In Our Kitchen

I see gumbo—an old saint, our lilies by wisdom: I see confusion, this plethora of obedience, this ambivalent mimicry—our sultry wives, heated with culture, our eyes camouflaged: this cranky air-vent, that aroma of onions, that pot of greens: this seasoned sensation, as caged our animals, at lift to appear a sudden second.     [I live malaise, this uneasy essence, this childhood film: our faces hidden, our emerald kitchens, our misty moments: this feeling crying, as tearless a mud-pond, baffled by cadence—this aloof presence, as tugging chandeliers, our carpets those existential mazes—to see with courage, as infused with loneness, our mediators spelling our traumas: this surface deepness, to erupt in breakthroughs, as warring a series of false thoughts: our mental tyranny, our sullen madness, our medical diagnoses—to hush a petal, caressing gardenias, that inverted vacation—those English jolts, that Jewish synagogue, those African Christians—as lives our eeriness, while torturing human proclivities, as misconstrued with cosmic thunder. I was tugged early; mother cooking; those immortal chicken wings. We died essence, as blessed to suffer, pictured as typical characteristics—this family’s jewel, at torments sober, stressing for rising while flitting through realities: this measured insanity, at rooms his mind, our post-traumatic duress—this flying possession, as wisdom slanted, to admire good where bad is present; indeed, our kitchens, our winter crock-pots, our red beans with rice—our sons and daughters, our percolating malaise, our nights at bowels of grass; indeed, our cagey repercussions, where death was devastating, to have as honesty a corral of distrust—this enclosed resonance, as deemed medical, where openness is prized as normal: our steep extremes, to manicure our senses, while at piers shifting through personalities].     We tread lakes, this inner toolbox, our faucets in need of maintenance—that crazy self, those enriched insights, this cautious gadfly; at tears, his landscape, our inheritance by dysfunction, while, nonetheless, we perceive nothing: this crazed man, requiring mirrors, while disturbing complacence: this portable gem, this flagrant mishap, our years to one emotion—as cried his life, to see increments, this person kayaking emotions: that flat fullness, this measure of manipulation, this seething repetition—while others feel, as torn asunder, to lose from self this entrance into others: that vacuum passion; those intimate embarrassments; that Retriever at attention—our inner cues, to hear her bark, while at wonders an empty room: if but to witness, this ghostly self, as lives our reflection—where mothers live, as fathers oversee, while siblings vie for affections—that penchant angst, those buns with butter, our stews a reflection but life—that edgy brokenness, to sense for status, albeit, as, too, broken, those tools become indispensible—those tiger woes, that cheetah’s bones, that saber our electric brains; as floating through time, seated at destruction, this conscience decision to live rightly—as morals would breed, while ethics assist, this portal as philosophic heartbreaks; indeed, while flooded, pictured as malaise, stationed at this repetitive grave: those old feelings, as familiar terrain, this inner knowing of hell’s destination.     [I have this feeling, our souls to fires, as announced his insanity—that hawkish wind, that kitchen of victuals, this kneading of emotions—to venture with time, this space of past-lives, where actions form memories—as stunned a voice, to see confusion, where assessments are contradicted by new behaviors—as tugging resistance, while experiencing upheavals, at terrors to exclaim forgiveness: this wealth of passions, as far too soon, while, indeed, a smidgen late].