Appetite.

As I left my first Thursday piano lesson, I asked the mom if she liked Indian food. I’d seen a recipe for Chicken Tikka Masala that I wanted to try, but I knew I needed to share because it would make so much.

She said she loved it, so I told her I’d bring some over, and she said, “Just come over for dinner!”

So I made dinner (sooooo yummy) and took it over. Her husband had returned early from a deployment, and he also loves Indian food. It was a fun couple of hours…and this recipe is so easy to make that it will become a staple in my rotation for sure.

It would be nice if dinner with friends becomes a staple in my rotation, too. I forgot how much I enjoyed that–before grad school, nearly every Sunday I had dinner with my friends Matt, Debbie, and Jen. It forced me to not grade or plan lessons, and was a relaxing way to start the week. I didn’t realize how much I missed those dinners until tonight.

Appetite

by Paulann Petersen

Pale gold and crumbling with crust
mottled dark, almost bronze,
pieces of honeycomb lie on a plate.
Flecked with the pale paper
of hive, their hexagonal cells
leak into the deepening pool
of amber. On your lips,
against palate, tooth and tongue,
the viscous sugar squeezes
from its chambers, sears sweetness
into your throat until you chew
pulp and wax from a blue city
of bees. Between your teeth
is the blown flower and the flower’s
seed. Passport pages stamped
and turning. Death’s officious hum.
Both the candle and its anther
of flame. Your own yellow hunger.
Never say you can’t take
this world into your mouth.