I keep Darkness well fed.
It needs me.
Sometimes breakfast:
Smoked grief
two minutes in the pot.
Hash browns
like childhood, shredded.
Goji berry smoothies,
magenta rivers from
father’s buckle.
When adventurous, I
take Darkness to the Farmer’s Market:
Locally grown intentions
simmering in butter
and fresh rage
before quenelles of bitter cream.
Oyster mushrooms
braised in misplaced loyalties.
I work with whatever’s in the cupboards:
The last two gripes,
a canister of seasoned panic crumbles.
A sleeve of unhinged macaroons.
Cayenne to match
a lover’s infidelities. I ignite
Darkness in me;
keep my keeper feasting. Fasting,
I make a New Year’s resolution:
Subscribe to Southern Living;
binge Food Network
because the way to survive
a bottomless world
is to keep from being
swallowed.
–
Candice M. Kelsey is a writer and educator living in Los Angeles and Georgia. Often anchored in the seemingly quotidian, her work explores the intersections of place, body, and belonging; she has been featured in SWWIM, The Laurel Review, Poet Lore, Passengers Journal, and About Place among others. Candice reads for The Los Angeles Review, and her comfort-character is Jessica Fletcher.
