Heidi Seaborn, “A Clean Kitchen

A Clean Kitchen

Heidi Seaborn

Sometimes I worry that the world’s got a cold heart. Will it ice over like food left too long in my freezer, little crusts of frost growing fungus under the Tupperware lids? My freezer needs to be cleaned & by that I mean the refrigerator must be cleaned, everything pulled out, shelves wiped & by that I mean the kitchen too, oven, range, cabinets & by that I mean the whole fucking house & the raised beds in the garden need to be planted & the house & the garden where I write at my desk with the dog’s dirt & fur curled around my bare toes & the hum of the refrigerator reminding me it wants to be cleaned. I just read a poem from a poet that wants a clean heart, but I want a clean kitchen & a clean poem & frost-free heart.

Medusozoa

Jessica Fischoff

And so, in the desperate measure Of undoing, the Lord transformed me Into a jellyfish and skipped me Across the continent, into the darkest Trenches of the sea.

I cleaned my fluorescent regalia Of the sandy cover, like Medusa Letting down her hair, I unfurled my tentacles To sting the salty brine, And claimed my kingdom.

Savage

Jessica Fischoff

This labyrinth is a serpent untangling its belly, and I’m wandering the mess of stomach, a lost and undigested bone that won’t pass to the new life.

The thread unravels toward the heart, and I shed my skin in sacrifice, cut the memory of stars, of earth, of humble beginnings, raising glasses,

waking in my own bed, hands still soft. I’ve lost my way before, but never in such darkness. There is no difference between dying and the marks I’ve tallied into the gut.

I should have scratched my name, slept through the struggle. The only thing more brutal than the tip of a horn, is the mouth that swallows whole.