Dinner Poem

By Aeriel Holman

Tonight, while making dinner, I had a

Weird introspection about God.

I had to make some meal-in-a-

box

that was more soup than actual food.

as I stood in front of the stove

more statue than chef

I was waiting for my creation to

boil.

At first the mess is all liquid

pinches of meat

chunks of spices

clumped with transparent rice

You can barely make it out.

I was staring down as heat

made the center 

bubble

pushing fermenting milk

aside and astride domes

of water.

I would stir

now and then

and 

that was when I thought,

I must be gazing

into the primordial ooze

The little pops

and 

bubbles

were almost 

like eyes,

Thousands of them

rising up from

tasteless muck

striving for a breath at the surface.

Then I would swirl my thick

plasti-polymer scepter

and send their searching

iris-less eyes

back into the abyss.

My tin shield beside my face

it was like

they desperately, despairingly

longed to gaze up 

at its creator…

But then,

when the mess was 

liquor and languid,

the eyes of the sightless

things begin to speak,

make the first strains of sounds

slow and hollow hisses

fast and bright clashes

in and out of

tune and time

I recalled the Directions

written out for them.

Their noise and eyes

were shut away with my dull shield.

The fires below them

blue in hue

as I turned down

the dial

trapped in dark

in dim

as the scriptures demanded

to cool and simmer

Even now I hear the

melody

faint

dying

forgotten

The moments

count on backwards 

the stove clock

Eventually

I reveal my

face to the steam,

escaping souls, almost

once grand frothing of

water and heat

rising to greet me in earnest in

eager

love and acceptance.

I stir the surviving

scrape the rice from

the bottom

and many cling

to their well-used

teflon grave-bed.

the bubbles are smaller

now

No less quiet

but certainly less entertaining.

A few more minutes and

I’ll be done.

Mostly.

I still need to let

the stew sit

mix the creamy topping

to be a fine sheet of oil

along the dead

a proud, fatty shroud.

Sprinkle the chips

atop—

much like flower petals

on a dirt grave

if you wish to think that way.

Only after the 

creation cools down

will I finally 

be at The End.

Then, I must do

what it is I set

out to do

in making the world.

I will devour it

Whole.

By Aeriel Holman