homesick

oh honey baby

clementines, my one true love, i want to bury you in snow,
i want to sing you dirges, to scoop out your flesh
into cupcakes and curd

15 year-old brother baking isn't the same,
flour and eggs whisked into rising warm mounds
as flesh and chocolate
as a basket of strawberries, earlobes

his early-morning masterpieces cooling on counters of an empty house
lonely chocolate-pear cake this AM, still running sugar when knife
pulled down and out
tiring of this cycle of breakfast blood-tests and day-sleeping math-mares

running a warm shower, bringing in a pomegranate to
crack open, to stain hands and lips quickly rinsed

exquisite insomnia, those lucid dreams where
i'm back at school in my kitchen
holding a single mango in my palm
half-peeled, juicy,
slicing off fresh pieces with your knife,
right into your mouth

night backdrop to low lights
mandoline slicer, bird-shaped salt shaker
hovering over the child-sized oven
fat bulbs of garlic hanging on the wall from string
green olives bathed in pesto

a sauce coaxed from tomatoes stewed in olive oil and red wine

where no longer missing a home not so cold
that we must wear our coats in bed