The pantry

Done. Cake’s in the oven… table is set.
Nothing to do but unzip this now, let it grace the floor
like silk at the base of a statue. I turn and hold a shelf,
itself holding jars of fruit bottled last summer
when the kids were at camp, and the house was ours;
but I was saying, how come dough makes such a sound
when it bakes? You hold my shoulders like handlebars
and guide me. Though the kids are home this winter,
they’re asleep still, or curled in bed half-shut,
ears strewn in places to catch signs
of how morning comes. But we’ve learned to come
as a team, to breathe the gasps of our fisted bodies.
No noise will leave this pantry, filled
with the bounty of life’s intent.
Like birds we’ll fit mouths to stop sound at the throat.
Anyone watching our shadow, or the way it moves
as it seeks some fulcrate thing — anyone
watching the glow under the door, like a mat to nirvana,
must at that moment know fire at bone, as at heart
© Rethabile Masilo