I
A can of pumpkin squats beside
the Korean bowl given by my aunt, the poor stone pot
where my culinary brainwaves come to rest, adopted
for concoctions like this morning’s. My favorite
long-handled teaspoon rushes through the rounds
of unlidded ingredients: crumbled feta, pickled olives, peppers, fish,
cinnamon and sesame, allspice and onions,
split peas shoehorned into cornbread, mozzarella melted in
with mounds of old shakshuka stewed with lentils,
spices that belong in pumpkin pie not makeshift
chili spread on ham then folded in high-fiber bread.
II
Yesterday’s discard becomes starter food
for today’s imagination, chewed by hungry generations
of ad hoc recipes like cud; why not add chili powder
to the old puree with two types of chocolate, one bar clocked
at one-hundred, the other eighty-five percent cacao,
both squares black as coffee, running rich
and ruminant through mind and mouth.
III
Divide and double-batch, garnish toil and trouble
until it’s pressing down and running over with an odd panache
of hot sauce and honey, sardines and peanut butter,
the abundance that invents as though it were necessity,
seasoned with thanksgiving and a pinch of salt.
Caleb Hill is a cybersecurity technician by day, poet 24/7. His Teams messages and Outlook emails are occasionally too flamboyant, but his literary leanings are affectionately tolerated at work. He is currently on a quest to discover a unified theology of poetics and fit it into one luminescent essay. Wish him luck. You can find more of his work online at ardentlychill.substack.com.
Image: bosela, morguefile.com
Check out HFR’s book catalog, publicity list, submission manager, and buy merch from our Spring store. Follow us on Instagram and YouTube. Disclosure: HFR is an affiliate of Bookshop.org and we will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Sales from Bookshop.org help support independent bookstores and small presses.
Heavy Feather Review 