InterBoard Poetry Competition

STOVETOP
      Sarah Sloat
      (Desert Moon Review)

the girls have grown so much
the ceiling shatters
kitchen chairs collapse

but a quart of milk stays simple
it will do for brewing
custard in the sweet hereafter

recital of steps so few
even a daughter might muster
a cloudburst of milk

mudslide of sugar
egg albumen expanding
like a most virginal flower

stovetop, slop shrine
nothing special about
stewing, ruminating

over smoke in the kitchen
why, because
the mind simmers

like melancholy it boils over
and what else can one do
up to the elbows in flour