Kitchen Song

my, un-orderly cupboard, empty white bowls included.

I awoke this morning thinking of poetry.  I sat on the couch last night reading poem after poem, sonnet after sonnet, in an attempt to choose my poem to memorize.  I think I have ended up with a new challenge, to narrow down my list.

I was an English major decades ago (only two!) back in college, and poetry classes were some of my favorites.  Now here I am two degrees later and in nursing school at a community college, at the same time falling in love with poetry all over again.

I have two definites on my list of poems I will memorize.  How many do think we can squeeze into our brains in one month?  So far, I have one by William Carlos Williams and a Shakespeare sonnet.  When I was looking up insights to my WCW poem online this morning, I stumbled upon this poet, Laura Kasischke.


Kitchen Song
by Laura Kasischke

The white bowls in the orderly
cupboards filled with nothing.

The sound
of applause in running water.
All those who've drowned in oceans, all
who've drowned in pools, in ponds, the small
family together in the car hit head on. The pantry

full of lilies, the lobsters scratching to get out of the pot, and God

being pulled across the heavens
in a burning car.

The recipes
like confessions.
The confessions like songs.
The sun. The bomb. The white

bowls in the orderly
cupboards filled with blood. I wanted

something simple, and domestic. A kitchen song.

They were just driving along. Dad
turned the radio off, and Mom
turned it back on.

I like the simplicity, the imagery, the way the darkness is there whether she wants it to be or not.

I immediately felt a kindred spirit to this woman in Michigan, sitting perhaps at a desk near a window writing.  I wonder what color her kitchen is?

-Melissa