Dominique Larntz * January 12, 2012 * “Love Letters To My Body”

Mass Commercialization Disperses Back Into Family Gardening

My counter,
the smallest
of laboratories,
is the perfect example
of high entropy,
crowded again
with oats and cranberries;
vodka sauce and figs.
Or is it the smallest?
From two hundred years past,
tell me the science fiction writer
who would have imagined
the double-ovened joyous
holiday we have any day
while watching a big screen TV
in the great room and washing
tomatoes grown organically
from containers on our back porch
because the mass shipped
tomatoes have no taste.
I try organizing the cupboard
fairly well, watching for signs
of perfectionism
or hoarding in my psyche,
noting how they can
relate like two opposite points on a line
or two points that meet on a circle
when that line is shaped
to be curved beyond a bowl.
Naming myself on that continuum
likely fails to add flavor
to any dish produced in this lab.
Better to place my attention
on more physical details–the smell
of lemon as it cleans the disposal,
the richness of the blossoming
orchid on the shelf, the feel of the jar
of chipotle as I twist the cap open
to add it to our eggs in the morning.
Chaos like ours, like mine,
exists well beyond–and well within–
the projects and recipes and tools and tastes
at my fingertips.