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
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