Sorted

Hunting and Gathering

Hunter-gatherer reenters the fire circle

unshoulders the day’s, the week’s provender,

home from the market.

Genetic echoes from pre-tribal times—pack times—

expressed by car keys returned to the proper shelf.

Fridge restocked with today’s deal on frozen mastodon

the hunter’s only wound an ego-bruise at checkout

cut off in line by a mink in sneakers

salved now by a bargain Malbec in a juice glass.

With you these sapiens rituals ascend

to a fantasy fulfilled—two men

folding from the same laundry basket

decades of prints sepia on the shelf.

Only dim margins unshared:

childhood…

a stray night on an isle long ago…

regrets and resentments simmer beneath

in a savory stew of day-to-day

digested into weekend jaunts and wondering

where to vacation next year

or what Julia Child requires of the Hunter

to make Tuesday’s boeuf bourguignon,

for she is the badge of the apex.

Gourmet dishes need stayers and finishers.

You gaze across a thousand tables

ten thousand tables under lights

incandescent, fluorescent, halogen, LED and, yes, candles

that light the eyes that have seen

the Hunter stumble, the Hunter fail

and still gaze back through the steam

knowing and yet still here, anyway.

The seer the seen and the savor

the fruits of the snare.

Loading the Dishwasher

The phrase itself evokes a certain privilege.

I’ve lived with and without and with is almost better enough.

The casserole, the sushi board,

the tagine, the wok,

never Grandma’s china,

it all goes in. More merry.

Slosh slosh and a gentle ping; lift and fling;

flight to the shelves that hold

all you can handle sometimes.

Some days it is the only door that opens

to you or that closes on your mess.

“I’ll handle this.” Click.

Words of a saint.

Heavy Duty. Light China. Normal Wash. ProScrub

To Heat Dry or not is the only

decision I am up to today.

Opinion is divided over how green is my vice.

One more dilemma to rack and stack.

Even so there are times dishes tower in the sink,

a wine glass shatters, shards nestle in the silverware, 

a spoon lurks near the drain unreachable.

Those days are the days…

You want to load your job, your mate, your boss,

your bills, your kids, those walkers, that customer,

the news, Washington Beijing Brussels Palm Beach

your mother, your body, your anger, your hunger

your fears for the future, locked and loaded—

Cancel/Drain.

Sorted

There. Don’t put this on top of this.

This is not for those to be put like that.

Here is for those that go there.

That is where you should put these.

Here is for things that don’t belong there.

There is nothing like these here.

Here is where nothing should be put like that.

Those things stay over there.

This shouldn’t go there like that.

That’s why those things stay over here.

These things like that go here.

That there belongs with those, not these.

Those should not go there on top of this.

There, there, those go here like these there.