May
I think of you most on Sunday afternoons.
Plucking bright green basil at the kitchen bench,
while my ginger-haired boy scribbles
circles on graph paper.
I conjure your girls
sitting beside him;
tangled black curls defying a brush after chasing each
other
round and round in the hall.
I crush the toasted pine nuts with the flat of a knife.
The rich, timbered scent echoes the tang of your chest
whenever I am close enough to inhale you.
I unwrap the garlic and discard the flimsy skins.
All the while musing on peeling the public figure
and finding the man who inhabits him.
I grate reggiano and glug olive oil,
I mix and scape and grind.
I take parts and make a whole.
I make food to fill the hole.
I think of your girls lined up at my bench,
scoffing pillows of gnocchi I’ve shaped with my hands.
Those hands that sweep sweat from your liquorice eyes
when we meet, once again, and demolish each other.
I think of you most making food for my family
while you are at home, being nourished by yours.