Curing

My kitchen is wrought with iron

instruments, the ones which resonate still

with the scent of baking bread, sweet

buns, and fried onions of eons ago, the patina

of taste building up black and bright, and spreading

everywhere now: dampening the fresh drywall

with an oily sheen, encouraging the panels to give

a little and break apart like gills, breathing

with the motion of preparation, a humid paella,

twelve finely iced cakes, a kettle of tea.