Six-bachelor Kitchen Counter
Three bars of drooping butter,
one in a Rubbermaid dome, another bare,
the third with silver foil curling out
from lumpy gold, the way wadded-up paper
snakes away from a flame before shriveling in brilliance.
Two pitchers—one empty,
the green one half full and splattered
with blood-dark drops.
A black coffee mug,
its oversized handle a great, hollow ear.
Spilled corn flakes, some glued
around the trunk of a syrup bottle,
others drifting toward the counter cliff.
A white toaster oven, its foil-covered tray growing spores
of burnt cheese.
Three cups: olive green, burnt-orange, purple.
A green rag,
greasy butterknives,
a yellow sponge.
And under the faucet,
as if growing from the drain—
a houseplant.
I wasn't too excited when my creative writing teacher assigned us to go home and write a poem about something ordinary, and we were supposed to describe it in a "fresh" way. It was either that afternoon or the next day when I walked out of my college room into our kitchen area to find the normal aftermath of six bachelors sharing a kitchen. There were all these things that looked just like a mess, but I sat down and started to describe it, and by the time I was done our kitchen was suddenly a work of art. So this turned out to be one of my favorite poems.
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