Kitchen
Patrick Phillips
I can see the grout between the bricks
and hear the Hot Wheel clatter
as it fishtails, and then flips.
The stove like some experiment:
clouds of sweet steam belching
each time my mother lifts
the stock pot’s sweaty lid.
My sister’s busy with her ponies.
My brother in the fortress of his room.
So I alone sprawl at her feet—
the same age, and in
exactly the same mood
as my son, now, in the kitchen
where soon we will
have lived so long ago.
