Baked Goods

Flour on the floor makes my sandals

slip and I tumble into your arms.

Too hot to bake this morning but

blueberries begged me to fold them

into moist muffins. Sticks of rhubarb

plotted a whole pie. The windows

are blown open and a thickfruit tang

sneaks through the wire screen

and into the home of the scowly lady

who lives next door. Yesterday, a man

in the city was rescued from his apartment

which was filled with a thousand rats.

Something about being angry because

his pet python refused to eat. He let the bloom

of fur rise, rise over the little gnarly blue rug,

over the coffee table, the kitchen countertops

and pip through each cabinet, snip

at the stumpy bags of sugar,

the cylinders of salt. Our kitchen is a riot

of pots, wooden spoons, melted butter.

So be it. Maybe all this baking will quiet

the angry voices next door, if only

for a brief whiff. I want our summers

to always be like this—a kitchen wrecked

with love, a table overflowing with baked goods

warming the already warm air. After all the pots

are stacked, the goodies cooled, and all the counters

wiped clean—let us never be rescued from this mess.