In My Father's Kitchen

Everything is clearly labeled: brown rice,

flour, sprigs of mint.

Even the clear containers with nothing much to hide

are marked, oftentimes erroneously --

i.e. homemade croutons in the place of granulated sugar

or the orange juice clearly hiding out in a pitcher denoted "cold tea."

So much is out of place in his world.

I suppose he desires this affectation: organization,

order within the massive disorder,

pockets of resistance in an undistinguished war,

his kitchen a culinary zoo of the taxonomic scale

each family, genus, and species defined,

and yet prepared for the evolutionary shuffle and reshuffle

that, were he God, he'd most likely call "progress"

all according to our latest theorem--

flexible beyond conclusion.

Andy McFadyen-Ketchum

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