Kitchen 

agreed:
no baggage
no promises
just:
you slice
these fat red tomatoes
i brought from my garden
i dice
these skinny green peppers
you bought from the old vegetable man
i fold the blue napkins
into birds of paradise
you pick the music

if you share
your favorite cookbook
i'll let you wear
my favorite apron
and if the first four tablespoons
of butter burn
let us laugh
toss it out
throw in four tablespoons more

the perfume of cilantro
and the piquancy of lime zested
are commas and colons
to our slowly simmered stories
(but no baggage
no promises)

i hope you like
yellow cornbread
you hope i like
dark brown beer