by Sambhu Ramachandran
I could never believe in a god rising up
from the roiling waters of my identity crisis,
my heart gripped around his bulging biceps
like a ship saved just in time. But I put my faith
in your cooking to clear away the long wisps
of fog that curl behind my eyes, avoiding head-on
collisions between one uncertainty & another.
Who will believe it if I say your recipes have brought
me back from the whirlpools within me? My mouth
a compass by which I navigate morbid compulsions
that sing to me like beautiful sirens. You always knew
the right way to sauté verbs that had begun to spoil.
When I said, if only I could, you would stir & stir
it ’round till my inability tasted almost like self-acceptance.
It is night again & you have lit the fire where a pan
simmers, the heat pronouncing your name like a goodbye.
Here I am at the table, tracing an outline of two
interlinked hearts with my nail. My silence starts
to feel like a journey without a destination as you
pick out the fattest cucumber from your hoard. I watch
you peel its green skin & begin to slice it up,
magicking a row of thin white ovals like pale faces
on a decelerating roller coaster. There is something
unforgettable about your style of holding a knife,
the way you angle it into the cool green. Something
unforgettable about how you dive in & out
of demolition. Almost like playing on a violin
appassionato in an earthquake. Which is to say
I am pricking up my ears for the ghost music pouring out
from between your fingers. I wish it were how grief
cut me up when my plate began to sag with the weight
of all I could not eat. With so much grace I would forget
all my pain and focus instead on the rise & fall of the blade.