The tight twists,
those right turns, over and over again:
Sprite bottles, Listerine caps
or even doors lock from inside.
Memories on sleep mode,
a shutdown of Toshiba,
the silence before an alarm quakes,
the hush within pillow talk.
And the noise of rain,
the heavyweight pounds against the glass,
the knocks as if someone
BAM! BAM! BAM!
Hello? Who’s there?
Black Memories.
The calm as she slides
slithering into corner pockets,
pooling until desertion.
It’s me in the kitchen
finally cooking:
green peppers tossed in with reds
and onions,
that popping, shhhhhh ski ski, of olive oil.
It’s a sapphire, mental journal,
the tattered pages 1 to 1000: you coming home late,
brown hair messed,
brown mascara sliding south,
the ticks of seconds, tsk tsk tsk, as Fossil shouts, it’s over.
And that unforgiving smile,
the gentle ambiguous shake of your head, No.
The pull of pink lips.
The tight twists of silence.
It’s you handing me the knife,
the large, shiny one, the long
thick, black handle, the hush within our kitchen.
Vegetables sizzling, screaming
like lobsters for Old Bay, for zucchini, broccoli.
It’s you watching me, the quick,
shaking cuts of this, the thin slices.
That those eyes, they pierce.
A Black Memory.
Your coaled pupils urging, Just do it. Keep slicing!
I dare you.
to cut even after the zucchini, the broccoli, to chop
until silence is a hush and HUSH! becomes peace.
