Bowls

For a moment, stillness as before rain.
The kitchen holds me.
The many bowls,
filled, once, with your lukewarm soup
are lined on the counter in all their simple imperfection, waiting
to be wrapped in newsprint and stacked in boxes.
This is not an easy decision.

We threw out the peels from onions and potatoes
long ago -- such hearty food!
The eyes, cut out like so many bad metaphors,
lay crying in the garbage by the sink for days
before we knotted the bag and left it at the curb.

Now, such a fragile reminder. I’m packing gingerly.
Cleaned, dried, the chipped earthenware pieces, the unbreakable
Corning Ware with blue trim.
The kitchen walls blur.
We shift slightly and adjust
to focus, contain all this, anew:

the bowls, the room
& movement.

(Like bats, by sonar.)