Self-Portrait as Maillard Reaction

When I linger over the stove’s concentric fire, I remember
the first burgers I made in your filthy bachelor’s kitchen. I held
the heft of beef like a brick; it ached for a window to slaughter.
Raw hands deep in the raw meat, I broke it into four pieces,
then rubbed each hunk’s edges smooth. The mud-colored
patties—alight on chintzy buns—still bore the marks
of a grinder: wormy tracks in their midst, the paths of maggots
through a body. But I got better at cooking, better at forgetting
the shackle of dinners on the table at five. Helpless
husband, marzipan prince in your father’s suit: you
never knew how you grew up or whether. Think of the night
you called me to ask how to brown the beef yourself. At thirty
you didn’t know a thing about cooking, so I paused a conversation
at a dinner five states away. I should have told you
helpless things do not eat, but are eaten. Instead I froze
beneath a streetlamp, tried to describe the thaw
of pink beef going brown as autumn leaves. And why
wouldn’t I: at home, that smells good was the only compliment
I’d get in a week, or a month—our little horseshoe kitchen
a court I held sway over. The way to a man’s heart and all that.
Then I let you go. You let me go. And now I’m struck
anew by Mama’s advice about browning beef: she warned
that just because it looked ready didn’t mean that it was.
If you’re patient, all that heat makes something delicious, but
it’s hard to wait when you’re starved. Dear, foolish man:
I was still pink inside. But I was so proud of that terrible meal.
We ate it, gray and bland, and I cooked a thousand more.

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