Add Ingredients and Stir

by Anne Fraser

Short uneven strokes,
this random walk among separated pieces,
another day's cast-offs left to simmer,
green tomatoes,
carrot stubs
grains of rice to fatten
under remnants of a wing.

This heat knows nothing but itself,
the boil of moments shared
in intimate conversation,
the yield of water -
then the steam.

I know the crack of thunder,
the cold, the dark,
a touch that comes too sudden
or too hard.
And I have known hunger,
steam that beats against the lid -
that way of seeing.