The Recipe File
Marne Wilson
When you asked for a few of my recipes,
it seemed like the most intimate request
a man could have made of me,
more personal than if you had asked
to see me without my glasses
or even without my dress.
I never divulge my secrets in the kitchen,
aware that they are my stock in trade
and the only thing that ever gets me invited to parties.
But it was different with you,
who I thought would eventually partake
of three meals a day from my kitchen,
so I gave them to you gladly,
opening my heart along with my cookbook.
Now when I imagine the two of you laughing
in a sleek kitchen straight out of Better Homes and Gardens
as you prepare my oven-fried chicken,
my fajita quesadillas,
or my baked Italian pasta dish,
I can only think that I have given you a wedding present
that will stick with both of us for our whole lives.
Marne Wilson lives in Parkersburg, West Virginia. Her poems have recently appeared in Poetry East, Oyez Review, and Atlas & Alice and are forthcoming in Constellations and Flint Hills Review. She is the author of The Bovine Daycare Center (Finishing Line, 2015).