Flash in the Pan, Fry the Chicken, & First Holiday, Post-Divorce

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Colleen Harris

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Flash in the Pan

I sway in the kitchen between
cabinet and stove, catching
the rhythm my father taught

me. I sweep from drawer, to pan,
to fridge and back. In the empty
space over my shoulder I hear him,

echoing with the glee of a chef:
Now we’re cookin’ with gas!
Like my father, I can barely see,

red-faced, weeping over onions.
The knife is a silver blaze
as I chop. He never put them

in the freezer to cut the sting.
A hard, unknowable man,
volatile as flambé, work-hardened

hands and stocky body oddly
suited to cooking. I hoard
his recipes and memories

of washing dishes at his side.
The history in that kitchen
mine, unscathed, gleaming

like his good knives, pride
and joy of our modest home.
You cannot measure greatness

but in dashes and palmfuls.
I do not know how to carve
a bird, or tell when a steak is done

with the press of a finger. But
everyone loves my stuffing, my roast
pork loin, twice-baked potatoes.

My rough father stands behind me
with a kitchen towel over his shoulder
well pleased with my offering.

__________

Fry the Chicken

Fried chicken can teach you so many things.
Grease streaks do not come out of wallpaper,
the oil can make the air pregnant for days.
It works like invisible fingerpaint

on the fabric of your best tablecloth.
The first time he asks for seconds feels like
a smaller version of his proposal,
a promise of future calories shared.

A chicken leg waved in a chubby fist:
proof you can provide. Your well-fed children
bring cold chicken for lunch with their box drinks,
just as good at school as at funerals.

And the chicken is good at funerals,
keeping people busy, mouths full, mouths shut.

__________

First Holiday, Post-Divorce

It is the only place where she has
her choice of weapon: cleaver,

cudgel, awl, and grater lined
on the counter. She wields them

for friendly ends, cupcakes
and roasts, stews and casseroles,

sustenance, effort and reward.
Though it sustains her, conversation

is stilted, recipes are so exacting,
so much of this, so much of that,

strict judgments, little room for gossip
or affection. She fires the cast iron,

greases it, salts it. It remains
dumb metal, dark and obtuse.

__________

Colleen S. Harris is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee whose poetry books include God in My Throat: The Lilith Poems (Bellowing Ark, 2009), These Terrible Sacraments (Bellowing Ark, 2010; re-released by Doubleback Books, 2019), and The Kentucky Vein (Punkin House, 2011), and she co-edited Women Versed in Myth: Essays on Modern Women Poets (McFarland, 2016). Her poetry has appeared in Main Street Rag, Free Verse, Wisconsin Review, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, 66: The Journal of Sonnet Studies, and Tipton Poetry Journal, among others.

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