The Kitchenette.

The Kitchenette

I look around the bleak and dying room.

My family has been torn apart.

Someone was dying in the den;

And now his ashes are resting in my mother’s

Grave.

There is something that is to be said about this

Kitchenette; it is small but brings back a lot of

Memories, some healthy, some not.  I have never

Made a single serving mistake here, when it

Came to feeding my family, and I know what it is

Like to be disowned from your husband or someone

Like that, like your grandmother or your nephew

Or a three-year-old child who is lost.

Once I got lost when I was five years old and no one

Knew for several hours, once I went into hiding

For four hours and no one found me and then I heard

Them ask out loud if I wanted some ice cream,

And if I did that I needed to come out in order to get it.

I guess that was the way to bribe a child, with ice cream.

Slowly and surely, our lives have changed, and we inter-

Change with others; and sometimes, these others

Have kitchenettes that do not resemble ours;

Sometimes their food is not the same and their lives

Are not the same, but they are exactly like us on

The inside, and that is the most important thing about

It.  That we can find a place of recognition so we won’t

Be destroyed, so the ending of life won’t come any

Nearer. 

The destruction is in the kitchenette, not what it represents.

Just what I told my mother after my husband left me.