I have two woks to savor all the world.
When I bought them, I remember, you said
Now we can do great vegetable meals. You
Meant me, but I didn’t mind. I made one,
A passage to exotica, served with tea,
Never again. You never ask me why.
Something about making a meal demands
Complicity. The last time I cut onions
“Because I never cry”, you didn’t see
I lied. I was already weeping then.
The kitchen is the image of our pain,
Unfinished now for years. A cardboard box
Reeks from beneath a half-built countertop,
A bare bulb glares. Nothing’s as it should be,
Even the Baccarat is thick with grease.
There are no cabinets yet. So I read
Marcus Aurelius every day:
To be distressed by anything external
Is due not to the thing itself, but me,
My estimate of it, and this I have
The power to revoke at any moment.
The woks stand empty, all the brimming world
Hangs on a breath of who I choose to be.