How Not to Cook

A smoke-dark cloud
obscures the kitchen corner.
Whenever I think the word cook,
the cloud spits sparks, and
my mother emerges.  

Scolding. Finger wagging.
Not the right way to make it.
Too much salt.
Let me do that for you.
Shaking her head.

The kitchen is my panic room.
Still, I have to eat.
Defiantly I buy slow cookers,
air fryers, electric skillets.
Things she never used.

Until the kitchen is a tangled
jungle of electric cords
wrapped in user manuals.
My mother sits in the
cloud and grumbles.

And I go out to eat.

published in the 2022 WyoPoets chapbook, "Emergence"