A Confession of Recipes

If you're reading this, honey 
it means the diner is burning,

It's not a typo or a misprint,
but a message:

Witches are wisdom-embedded
women who have seen worse things
than the business end of a newt's behind

I once made a man cry with desire
on a whim by telling him who he was
at twenty-five, I hadn't yet realized

it's really just a trick of language
to be specific
pick the bits of a person, hanging 
like snagged teeth on stems
of last night's arugula

reading their cards like tarot on credit
serve the assessment of them
with a side of sugar they'll call it magic, 
make you marry if you're good at it—knowing 
when to grind the spices is the icing

sin of men or Saigon cinnamon no matter
witches as women, as wisdom get better 
in time, in the garden, in the kitchen
slow-cooking rhymes that melt men's masks
over jasmine rice, like loose meat

so the young girls feeding at our hems 
can remember the recipe

Copyright © | Year Posted 2024



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