My Kitchen Can Beat Up Your Kitchen<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
My sweet tea is a song played on a saw.
\nMy sweet tea is the bluest yodel,
\nthe bone-chill fog raking fingers down the Unicois.
\nThe throats of those who\u2019ve ever tasted
\nhum with the wanting
\nof my sweet tea.<\/p>\n
The stovetop moans
\nunder grease splatter; red coils
\nsmoke spilled peanut brine.
\nLinoleum cracked, peeled, scuffed.
\nMy kitchen testifies
\nin odors of cornbread and orange pekoe.<\/p>\n
My catfish is crusted with the dry tears
\nof freshwater mermaids, their brown fins muddy,
\ntheir whiskers!
\nMy catfish is fried in fat rendered from cherubs,
\nthe batter crisps, the flesh yields.
\nAll tongues rejoice in glossolalia,
\nfor the salivating
\nsalvation of my catfish.<\/p>\n
My okra hops a train, rides the rail
\nall the way up to Chattanooga.
\nMy collard greens evangelize the feet
\nof adventurers before they enter my kitchen.
\nMy dumplings hotwire a Cadillac made of teeth;
\nthey hold the uvula for ransom.<\/p>\n
The stockpot boils over, yellow froth
\noff sweet potatoes. My kitchen
\nis haunted by ghosts
\nwielding flour sifters, whose recipes
\nin graphite curl with broth steam.
\nMy kitchen is a wishbone
\nI snap in half.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Lindsey Walker<\/a> is a poet and writer originally from Chattanooga. She has won the Loft Poetry Contest, the League for Innovation Award for essay, and the Whidbey Writers Workshop Students’ Choice Award for fiction. Her work has been published a little in print and a lot online, recently by Your Hands, Your Mouth,<\/em> the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, and P.Q. Leer.<\/em> Her poetry will be featured in the upcoming issue of Third Wednesday.<\/em> She lives in Seattle with a boy and a dog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My Kitchen Can Beat Up Your Kitchen My sweet tea is a song played on a saw. My sweet tea is the bluest yodel, the bone-chill fog raking fingers down the Unicois. The throats of those who\u2019ve ever tasted … Continue reading