“Today the chef has lost his nerves.
He sits with no guests to rouse his spirit
to orchestration of utensils and food.

The plates are mirrors of absence,
the bowls hollow, no laughter
tinkling them to life;
asunder the chopsticks lie,
and the forks and spoons have lost
the hands and each other. Time now
for dining with ghosts, no songs
to stir the table-talk.

Only the silence of one before
untouched food, late in the evening.
Around him the clutter of a neglected
kitchen, the accumulating trash
of unfinished meals.

Pity the man who eats alone,
who feeds on the voices of ghosts,
who lets the food go waste
and stays up washing dishes,
performing empty tasks to keep
from drowning
in the wake of departures.

*

Morsels litter the table,
cigarette butts flood the tray,
the dishes are helter-skelter, the spices
have lost their names. The kitchen
is an abandoned camp, the fire-side companions
drifted on separate ways.

Wipe the table clear of traces,
stack the glasses, demob the spices,
turn off the gas, then the lights.

In the night one entertained
divinities unaware. The reward
only this: a widening field
of absence, drought ahead.”

— Boey Kim Cheng, “Iowa Cooking Lessons”