Company

^{after The I Hate to Cook Cookbook (1961)}

How scattered I am: post-spouse, with company coming;
in Florida in my earthquake gown, in my eelskin slingbacks

and electric mink stole. I tried to make
puff paste with sweating hands; butter

in the KitchenAid, covered in Everglaze;
apocalyptic looking and no one to stall.

Now egret feathers and alligators and gas
are gone; polar fur coats are all vintage

or bottle jobs and the corn is crawling even in the Bracken
and the Glades. But I'm up and dressed, at least; I make

of this doctored lambskin a dish of myself: big hair,
lippy, a little bit lush, maybe even horny. I'm going

to breathe in and replate the take-out
again, shake cocktails. I'm going to spread swampy,

an idea, a mangrove of the air.