#8 metatoast

            A ticking toaster oven timer tells her nothing of the way he’s staring at that screen again. Lit up green again. Ticket ticky ticket ticky. It only signifies burning. Black, charring ends. The dial is stuck and so it really times nothing. Only ticks, only sticks in its one times nothing place. In its one times nothing space she rhymes and the toaster times. Times out ticks to savory licks that she’s waiting for ticks.

            He reads aloud now. Poems of tape and foil and marbles and work. I like these poems she says and goes about the business of eating around the blackened raisins until there’s nothing left but the blackened raisins and then she eats those, too. They’re warm and brown and blackish. Still sweet.

            The poem wasn’t done. Now it’s about pina coladas. yEE haw!!! Bacon. VCR manual. Frozen metal. That’s the end of that poem. Now. The reason for toast is butter. And crunch. No matter what, butter and crunch can save her from the burnt air. There was a poem about burnt toast once. And a presentation in a classroom and a workshop. The people said they knew about burnt. About toast and the making of. The teacher drew a picture of toast on the paper and didn’t like the onomatopoeia. There were too many knives sounds and no one wants that or even gets it. Get rid of it. Get rid of knives. The kitchen is a dangerous place.

            In the end there are crumbs in the catch burning over and over again so no matter if you stand and wait and watch the damn thing browning it will still smell black. Why is black a smell to be afraid of? She couldn’t remember, but she knew she didn’t want it anyway. There was a time for remembering but it isn’t now. Now was a time for smelling and being. On fire. But toast is no moth and no matter how you go about it, it will never die. Now he’s making clicking noises at the screen. They come out in bursts of thought like drum fills. It’s something he’s remembering with hovered fingers over keys and her own keys click in response. Why, they chat at each other across the room! Who are you typing to he says. You honey she says. You’re typing to me? Mhm. This is love she thinks and wishes she could make the toast right. But that was the last slice and it was the heel, too. Which is sometimes better. After a while the butter on her lips begins to sour. After a while the matter in the clicks begins to hour.

            Hour after hour until hunger returns and a radio somewhere distant reports the national higher average and car engines whine off without them and neighbors pull in and doors bang and soap dispenses. In the end there has to be closure that brings a smell to meaning. So when the cars go by and the doors bang and you’re writing to me I can make sense of this so I don’t have to scrape it off the roof of one of my dreams later and sprinkle it on breakfast toast. She likes raisin toast the best because it feels like home. Maybe it’s the cinnamon that warms her. In the middle of the night she sometimes can’t remember where she is and she’s holding up a pure white cat like proof of who she is like an emblem of pedigree or artistry or filigree or shadow. The white cat is real, much more real than the white of this screen, this scene, this is what I mean. Put this back in until it is done, without the timer; don’t watch it. Burn.