I slide open vast extending drawers,
admire a butter curler,
crab cracker, wine corks

scattered like stars above the salad spinner.

In my sister’s kitchen I finger the miniature nutmeg grater,
the pizza wheel, the whisk —

spread out the French spoons —
used to baste Moroccan chicken, stir the melon bisque.

O to be an instrument of the culinary arts.

To live among them as mandolin,
as mint-green ice cream scoop —
I’d spend my last days in conversation

with the colander, the copper-bottomed pots
clanging above us like moons of Venus and Mars.

Let the appliances apply what they know —

light up, dive in, peel, wheel, and chop —
Hallelujah for the slotted spoon, the funnel, the sieve —

Let me labor like her thermos,
red and gold, which pours away what is hot

with the same equanimity as what is cold.