Photo by David Foodphototasty on Unsplash
by Lucinda Kempe
The first time they kissed they took the lemon-yellow butter from the fridge and anointed their toast with its Belgium crème and flakes of salt.
The next time they kissed they took the chuck roast from the cooling drawer, coated it in olive oil, salt, pepper, flour, thyme and browned its sides in the oven before adding wine, stock, mirepoix, bay leaves, cloves and tomatoes and later devouring it after they’d devoured each other.
The next time they kissed they took the plaster white Camembert wrapped in wax paper from the cheese drawer, left it on the counter to soften until they slathered it onto a rosemary baguette lightly toasted washed down with a Pinot Gris.
The next time they kissed they took the flour from next to the polenta above the eggs and made crêpes served with maple syrup and powder sugar for their son, and they ate their crêpes with cappuccino from a new machine they’d bought at Christmas.
The next time they kissed they took their daughter’s wedding cake out of the fridge, the cake made by the Copenhagen baker who said, “That’s a lot of crème cheese icing,” but it was their daughter’s favorite red velvet cake—the small reception was held in their parlor with a smaller number of guests, and they kissed each other and kissed each guest until they said, “We love you, too.”
The last time the mortician took the body from the fridge, they kissed with their eyes only as one of them lay pale and sculptural on a mortuary slab, dark circles under once bright eyes, gaunt skin hugging the bones, the mouth frozen in place showing not a trace of butter or chuck or Camembert or flour or red velvet cake with crème cheese icing.
Lucinda Kempe’s work is forthcoming in Salvage (China Miéville editor), the Summerset Review, SoFloPoJo, Bull, Does It Have Pockets, Gooseberry Pie, New Flash Fiction Review, and Centaur, among places. An excerpt of her memoir was short listed for the Fish Memoir Prize in April 2021. She lives on Long Island where she exorcises with words.
