“A Villanelle On Cooking at Home” and “A ritual at the kitchen sink” Two Poems by Fatimah Elzahrah

A Villanelle On Cooking at Home

Ingredients are laid out across the counter,
time twisted
up in aprons and cutting boards.

Thyme twisted
with patience
brewed in stocks and bones.

With patience, a fish is filet;
its skin screams
from the hot oil.

My skin screams
for a break
from the dishes.

For a break would mean
quiet halls
insecure in silence.

Quiet halls
that reverberate the rhythms
of the home engineer.

Reverberating the rhythms
of peeled healing
that leaves my eyes raw.

Of peeled healing,
ingredients are laid out across the counter
time twisted
up in aprons and cutting boards.

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A ritual at the kitchen sink

Pomegranates stain rosewater and cane sugar;
crushed jewels that splatter pretty at the kitchen sink.

Wash my hands a new rhythm, one that has
a fondness for cacao cherry crisps at the kitchen sink.

Find my Truths kaleidoscoped in art
and bubbling stews in the kitchen. Sync

the worship of my Divinity.
Light blue candles sanctify the kitchen sink.

Roll beads of dried rose petals in pink salt.
A dice rolls into the kitchen. Cinque.

Arnica steeped relief for my hands
and worries that knot over the kitchen sink.

The first trees of my orchard,
incubating abundance at the kitchen sink.

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