Somewhen we are

 A kitchen is a stock pot
a knife block hearth of the heart
where the young wobble and bend
after bumbled blueberries
and overzealous pot watchers
issue brusque commands
do not eat until the reckless rinse
love is a speck
the water washes past
a kitchen is a heritance field
a recipe is warped space
transdimensional imperatives bring to boil
add two packets pectin
a lavender of teaspoons
our cooks’ convection at somewhen
near-infinite points in time we pass
notecards down the generational bridge
we revise recipes real-time
in this cosmic cannery her afterimage
the only thing that escapes
the blackbody of the oven
sterilizing everything in my galactic galley
so only her phantom inheres
in here stacks of mason stars
glob and rise to the underbelly
of the upper cabinets herein
we cant across the floor of time
pace three ceramic parsecs between
sink and scorching cauldron

Let me begin again
in some other century
in some other pandemic extant
beyond the black iron
door that is no other door
it was then she was
carried to the kitchen in supine position
set beside her iron sentinel
so she could observe
the service the plain pine
lowered beneath her ecliptic
a husband laid to process
beneath a bath of earth
here she reaches through        
a Lethean portal to tear time
lays a hand on mine
ladles my first mason star
whispers all of time is process
the burst berries of her flu lips
sapphire as the jamb of jars
holding us open

Scott Chalupa is the author of Quarantine (PANK Books 2019). Chalupa lives and writes in South Carolina, where he teaches at Central Carolina Technical College. His current creative obsession is queering quantum and astrophysics as well as Biblical text and history to comment on the world we live in. Chalupa’s work has appeared in HIV Here & Now, Transition: Poems in the Afterglow, PANK, pacificREVIEW, 
Nimrod, Beloit Poetry Journal, The South Atlantic Review, Tupelo Quarterly, and other venues.