Two old, Saran-wrapped chicken legs; a carton (mostly full) of eggs; a quart of milk, two days expired; heads of lettuce, limp and tired; the wine I bought last time you came, just because I liked the name; some cilantro, onions, leeks — I haven't looked in here for weeks. I glance around the kitchen, blink, regard the microwave and sink. The spills of an aborted meal, unwiped, now silently congeal on surfaces. They fill the air with smells of foods no longer there. Discarded skins, forgotten stems — this empty place is full of them. In the cupboard; sugar, flour, honey (sweet), and lemons (sour) — Ingredients we chose ourselves, scanning our internal shelves for ways to add some novel taste. But all our cooking went to waste. We chewed each other up and then we spit each other out again. We jumped into the stove, ecstatic, set the temp to automatic, thinking we would simmer down into a lovely golden brown confection, but we failed to see how much we needed, both, to be, like any pancakes, gently turned. And so we cooked until we burned. A pound of love, a bowl of sad, two pints of good intents gone bad, a sprinkle of initial lust, a sifted cup of crumbled trust, extract of hope, potential essence, slowly dying effervescence, a drizzling of bitter sauce, — with these we baked the bread of loss. Somewhere our mental orchards stand on some expanse of psychic land; somewhere some agriculture grows emotion's fruits in even rows. Where are those hidden, fertile plains? What plow digs wrinkles in our brains? What wizened ranch hand roams our souls, where thought's productive soil unrolls? Abandoned farms of human need; twelve-acre dreamfields gone to seed; collapsing barns still filled with grain; crop-laden plots washed out by rain. The farmhands gather up their tools, move on to reap from other fools. They leave behind just empty air and once-green pastures, now stripped bare. Excursions — apples; outings — pears; Bananas — movies; cherries — fairs. Quarrels — carrots; anger — peas; Potates — boredom; chocolate — pleas. Bliss! Togetherness! Betrayal! Candied walnuts! Ginger ale! Sadness! Coffee! Love supreme! Sex! Contentment! Whipping cream! Now, as I look backwards through the things we did together, you don't look so tasty anymore. I see the spills across the floor, and think it was an awful mess — but that's just sour grapes, I guess. The soft, light cakes of our shared days seem now so many slumped soufflés. I pull the trash can over near the fridge, and hunker down and peer inside at those cold, tasteless things. I've had enough of wallowing in all this junk. I stick my whole arm back in there and then I roll them out in one delicious wave — there's nothing here I want to save.