I feel a power rising
In the dark corners of my kitchen.
It’s the neighbor’s wife.

The crash and the thud,
Of pestle and of mortar,
Threshing and thrashing
The dry flaky hardness
Of millet into paste.

She came in yesterday
Chuckling like a barbarian.
Like an old kettle
Boiling and blustering
Around the starchy softness of kneaded dough,
Gurgling and gushing
About the woody smoothness of the pound and pounder.

And dreaming that my hair-like flames
Would torch the ticklishness of her underbelly.

Photo Credit: MCCALL’S MAGAZINE COVER, WOMAN WEARING SCARF via Flickr Creative Commons