COOKING WITH ARCHIMEDES
Cool dove, white and earth-bound, ambient cheek bones fluffing
until some scare brings flight, and the color scheme of bouncing
light. My eyes ripple, debris settling into image. In your hair, the smell
of bay bonded to purple onion, red and green tomato stripes,
stoplight peppers sparking sweet and tart reactions. I inhale;
my stomach growls. Just yesterday, I closed myself
to this peace in kind, the non-pareils of fatigue spackling
the threshold of engagement. I reflect, pixilating depth. To be enclosed
on the other side, blank and dumb like winter, or fever before chill; to be falling
with no hope nor fear of ground; this is the prison of vision,
youngest child of the muse. A shadow lengthens, reverses – in which
the whole family seems to be lumbering, clattering to fit inside
the edges, purpling with effort, expanding with the setting sun
on the lengthening chord of horizon. Its light deepens and bleeds, until
the whole sky is a great gulp of wine from the blackest grapes,
or pomegranates sweetly sullied. In my dreams, I thirst for this, and more:
a gaggle of stars honking their distances at me like heat, gold bricks cached
inside your stove – you always were a leprechaun, God, miserly
and constantly counting out the same figures without end.
Your outline in the doorway flickers with the heat of every bubbling
pot, as you peel my troubles section by measured section like a bitter orange.