An informationist's kitchen

The refrigerator
is a two-way mirror:
the light is on
and a pat of butter
is grumbling.
Open the door
and words
wouldn't melt in its mouth.

The fridge's magnets
are a manatee,
a dolphin smuggling an anchor,
the letters of ALDUS MANUTIUS
reconfigured
as NUT SALAD,
U,
U,
and ISM.

In the breadbin
there's a soda loaf
shaped like money.
Stacked like DATs
there are flapjacks
made with millenial dates
(Iona honey
and the oats
from Johnson's dictionary.)

The hob has a fractal element
for instant boiling,
Pictish spirals for neaps-and-tattying.
Just a saltire
for a sullen simmer.

Turn on the washing
and the cat comes in
to watch the telly.
Tonight it's a documentary:
Delicates is pornography,
Whites, Heavy Soiled,
is the news.

The behaviour of 8 out of 10
Informationists' cats
suggests a preference for Woolens.
These are the soaps.

Turn to the taps and turn them on:
do you remember every sink
you've washed dishes in?
How home is in the time
the basin takes to fill,
the shape of the aluminium,
the tender throat of the overflow.
Wash crocks here
and know those kitchens again,
remember your mother singing
"Love is a many-splendoured thing"
as Dad showed the drippers a cloth.

Later, you can read your future
in the scraps and froth
that vision's Corrievreckan
will leave you,
but you will not leave this kitchen
when you know it.

All texts unless otherwise stated © Richard Price