Cleaner

Her day begins with a love affair:
fingering found foods behind the oven,
the breakfast blueberries training circuit.
Coriander is a turbaned man faltering in the palette,
her tongue gets busy pushing him away.
Mayonnaise limps into slug trails,
asparagus heads make plush military cylinders,
industrious and honoring glasnost.
Splashed prunes, feline and crapulent leave rude stains.

She hopes no-one will come in,
disturb her flirting with the squash,
reaching for the bacon rind.
She can almost smell the piquant rashers,
hear their popping chorus in the fryer.
She wants to claim the onion skins,
rub them coarse against her body
until she reeks of them.
She wishes the occupants would leave her more;
long and slippery soaked cinnamon bark sticks-
wet custard to lather up-
something to chew on.

In the holidays when no-one’s there
she lets herself into the flat,
chopsticks tangled in her hair,
throws off her coat,
j-cloths ragged blue squares,
moves the oven all the way out
and swims down into the cooking oil.

Only when Soya sauce smashes from
the oriental shelf into cartoon pixels
is she covered; raking birdlike at chicken bones,
adding ketchup- squirted in climactic, holy circles.

Illustrator: I-HUAN,LEE
Writter: Samantha Tucker