The Moon and the Kitchen Writer’s Muse





A writer was in the kitchen one night
with a hankering for her muse
whose face she found plated nicely
on the top shelf of the Frigidaire,
soiled with leftover pizza and beer.
The muse’s arms crossed in the butter,
her hands waved from the jar of jam
her nipples protruded—erect, from the raspberry quart
and her blue eyes were staring from
inside the fruited gelatin mold.
The muse’s lips stretched in a pudding smile
and her mouth said, annoyed,
“Close the door, can’t you see I’m eating?”
The writer turned to gaze out the window
where the paint on the eaves had chipped away
and the streets and the houses had
darkened and emptied, people locked
behind daydreams and doors and
the night birds conversed in the arbor vitae
and the pink moon hung low, catching light,
throwing it down and hiding things in shadows.
Amazed to live in a kitchen so
deluxe blended, six chair-woodened,
so doubleovened, gassyblue-hued
and fragrantly stewed,
the writer pecked away on a dusty Corona,
and searched beyond the yellowed lawn
for the one, perfect passageway,
brightened by moonlight,
that would lead her mind to her body again.

Bonnie Bolling