Kitchen Talk

I am chopping tomatoes, earning my keep.

Next will be olives and goddess sauce.

What burns me is the free ride, I tell you.

How he will marry, how he will live a good life.

And where does that leave my sister?

And where does that leave anyone?

You are considering this in your wet apron.

His wife will know, you say.

And I don’t know what is worse, that she will not know

or that she will know.

Where do these men go afterward?

Someone must love them.

I stand at the counter with my big knife,

ready to cut into anything.

You carefully hold a stack of warm, clean plates.

You say: Please remember to love the world.

You do not lean away from the blade.

A man, you say: We must, we must be kind.