The Kitchen Dance
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The cozy suburbs nestled in
jagged mountains. Painted blue skies and
puffy white clouds. Cookie cutter
house on streets of deja vu.
Never have I danced as I did
then, my knives all flashing, my hair all streaming,
my mother red with laughter, my father shouting,
half human, half estranged. Ambiguity
raping every thing that moved.
The world at last a meadow,
the three of us whirling and singing, the three of us
screaming and falling, as if we were dying.
As if we could never stop--in 2009--
in my disheveled kitchen, beautiful filthy kitchen,
five thousand miles away
from the others dancing--in Iraq and Somalia--
oh God of mercy, oh wild God.
