Untitled

Night Kitchen

 

To see art work which inspired the poem click on :

http://www.momawales.org.uk/

and scroll through their Collection

(On 'Night Kitchen' by Siani Rhys James

in M.O.M.A., Y Tabernacl, Machynlleth, Wales.)

 

She forces him to wear red though she knows

all the other boys wear beige or grey.

Now in the kitchen, the window turns black.

She skins, slices, peels, pummels and thumps.

He holds down his home-work as the table lists

and plates and glasses teeter and slide to the edge.

Cups jump on the dresser.  Cutlery clatters.

Blades of light glint on pots and saucepans

as they fly through the air and assault the fridge.

She steers the vermilion casserole into the rayburn

and turns half-listening to the radio's crackle.

As the cracked egg slips off the rim into the bowl

she sees her brush poised with cadmium yellow

above the canvas left behind in her studio.

Stephanie Green

(Published in 'The LIe of the Land' anthology (Cinnamon Press, May 2006)