flowers

I shut the oven door
and lean against the counter.
They aren’t home downstairs
so it is quiet.
Heat fills the kitchen up:
water for rice is boiling,
small bubbles form
on the panbottom and the water
begins to shimmer. The bubbles float
up and pop
soundlessly at the surface.
Lights search the walls
from the refrigerator to the living room;
I lift a louver to peek out,
closing the light over the sink
so the window isn’t a mirror.
The car moves down the street
through the fingers
of the yard’s leafless trees,
its taillights reflecting red
off the ice and its tailpipe issuing
a trail of white fumes.
I open the light
and pour the rice into the water and stir
until it is boiling again.
I look inside the stove and close the door.
I stand and look at the table:
two plates with forks and knives
and glasses, salads, butter.
The flowers all seem to lean together
in the jar: a yellow flower like ragweed,
a long thin head of cauliflower;
pink flowers now white at their tips;
strings of tissue paper crumpled into puffs;
roses with veins running through their crisp petals,
their color that of autumn and spring together.
I am with the roses until I hear
footsteps on the front porch.

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