Duck Soup
How many times have we stood in this tiny kitchen,
laughing, treading on each other's toes,
two cooks enough to spoil the broth.
Today you haven't come beyond the doorway.
You are picking at the paintwork
as if waiting for an invitation,
though all these pots and pans are yours
and the jar of marmalade you opened
before you did this
is still there on the sideboard.
It's the easiest recipe in the world
but still I fumble my ingredients,
forget the quantities I should know by heart
like multiplication tables.
Before, you would have shown me what to do.
I pretend not to hear your hiss of breath
when I slam the knife-heel down on cloves of garlic,
but I can tell
you're looking at the shimmering blade.
I smell my own sweat, sharp and onion-scented.
Stirring with a casual hand, I turn to make a joke
but falter at how near you are,
how you have rolled your sleeves up in the heat
how your wrists are so brightly white
against the blackening scars.
April 2002
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