POEM: Textures

On the windowsill

sits a feathery cactus

bulb and a silken candle.

Tidying fly-away braid

neatly beneath headscarf, I watch

yolk gel escape

into a milk jug.

A minute or so later,

heated gloop becomes

spongy eggs.

Beside the pan: creased silver

foil envelops flesh of freshly

baked bread.

For the meal later:

rice grains washed twice

in sieve, gravelly cr-ra-cr-ra

grating wired nerves while a few

grains scurry down

sinkhole

beneath tap

water, stream of cold

and smooth like the smooth sheet

which wrapped slothful curves - tangled

between thighs and whys? - the night

before in my lover’s den.

Catherine Mark