No matter how carefully she tends
to the meals,
they all look similar,
like cousins.
It is confounding to her
and she has begun to buy
obscure ingredients
to buck the trend,
but the alchemy of colours
on her cutting board
always ends up an opaque shade of gravel
with a texture like that rounded mass of substance
in the mouth
at the moment
of swallowing.
Tonight she surprised him,
chips with the veggie burgers
but not french fries,
baked dulse,
a sea vegetable
she didn’t plan to buy
but she has a weakness for foods
that make fervent
promises.
He tasted it first
always gregarious with his compliments
so many years in and still
marvels that she cooks for him
at all.
She saw it on his face right away
a sadness
the knowledge that the crispy chunk of kelp
that was in his mouth
could not
for no amount of love, loyalty or money
stay.
He spat it out
drank a lot of water straight from the kitchen faucet
and declared
That tastes like the remains
of a burned down
house.
He laughed
he could see by her face
that he hadn’t hurt her feelings
not because it was funny
but because she had finally
punctured the palate
and severed her lineage of
catatonic culinary
sameness.