The sky gets dark

enough for electricity,

and it rains, hard.

I’m in the kitchen,

separating, chopping.

By the window:

a cutting board, a mixing bowl,

two knives and a baking pan.

The sky peels back like integument.

It passes as it begins.

What happens now is chemical,

the crackle of lightening, the sting of lemon.

Fish scale wedges into my finger bed,

the window looks onto a still emptiness.

Air comes back

as I “pop, pop” vertebrae between my fingers.

The electricity dissipates

into the mixing bowl, into the margins,

and everything now

from green onion

to trout

is dead.

(2000)