trout [ 7 ]
Pooja Mittal [1 , 2 ,  3  ]
 
Recipe for Love 

one teaspoon of sugar 

yellow wallpaper tells no tales. Her eyes are 
the brown of dried petals pressed in a book, which peel away 
dead  
with the book smelling sweeter. Her hands on the kitchen table 
are the neat creases of folded handkerchiefs. 

dishes line the bordered shelf in 
holy matrimony, her hair 
does not dare to spring in the light 
of the lone bulb which has begun to watch her 
with a searing eye above the taps. 

2 cups of flour 

sometimes she is convinced that 
the tap is a metal snake with a  
silver tongue of water, she 

approaches warily armed with dishwashing liquid, 
and 
half expects to leap away in fear 
when that long snake moves to wrap around her fist - 
a demand and a possession. 

3 spoons of pain 

or is it free pools of Spain? words 
jumble in black ladders, alarming on  
the paper. a hallowed O can stare at her 
with baby eyes. an A in a shape of the  
Eiffel Tower, she thinks of looking up and  
feels small in front of A's. 

yellow wallpaper tells no lies 

bruised shadows are under the eyes of bedside lamps, 
they burn low intentionally, as if in shame. She 
does not look any more in the mirror - 
she imagines the bruises on herself 
away onto the bedside lamps, and 
the heavy arm across her chest at night 
away onto the moon who stares in silent sympathy. 

(the moon is smothered by the black arm of a tree outside) 

4 cookies jam-centered cut into hearts 

when he comes home at night 
with hungry eyes 
fists begging for a wall, stains 
on his shirt that speak of wrath, 

she will think of stars nailing down the world in a  
sacred cross and 
cookies jam-centered will 
break their hearts in 
red smears upon his fingers. 

tap hisses, the water is 
black with poison. The moon's face 
cracks and splinters. 
she counts spoons of sugar 
until the bedside lamps fall asleep to 
the dark hand of night smoothing their bruises. 
 
 
  © 2000 


fly7.gif (2560 bytes)