spaghetti

I look at you with cold
eyes, enjoying the attention
you pay to the noodles,
your special sauce,
I'm not interested in you.
The green linoleum is covered in coffee
grinds, grainy on my bare feet
and it bothers me.

You made the same meal
last week, the poor man's food.
You had me stop at the market,
pick up Caraway seeds,
which you now add to the meat
in your carefully imprecise manner.
I can already feel them sticking
between my teeth and i wish
i had said I couldn't make it.

I'm always afraid
the meat could be tainted. Mad Cow,
Hoof and Mouth, the cattle might be shipped
all the way from Europe
(I'm soo neurotic).
I watch you scrub
pots and pans, anti-bacterial
soapy between your palms...
maybe it's only your meat I find rotten.