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kitchen of grief

sheryl luna

It is hot.
Every broken thing stored
and restored. The cabinets locked.
My mind lets loose like pool balls,
billiards and booze. I am hot
and hungry, weighing time
like emptiness. Loaf of bread,
Jesus candle unlit. If I speak
no one listens. My kitchen is small.

Accustomed to messy solitude,
I whisper. The oven’s crackled
for days. I cook meaninglessness.
I bake it dark. The gas flames blue fire.
The last bulb whitens a false flower
on the ceiling. Picosso, my Picasso,
a tongue flickers fiery lies.

Where is the arrival of fire? A sun?
Lead me not into temptation,
my mercury the color of blood.
They say we were borne of water,
hot pools churning in a vast desert;
this is why we boil?

My kitchen prepares nothing
for this world. They say hell
is an endless burn, an eternal lake
of fire. And it was this constraint?
Such thirst. Such fire.
The elements at war within.
The living world, a blue orbit
towards then away from fire.