Poetry Corner

The Aging Chef

I’ve taken up culinary self-harm.
Paring knife piercings, boiled knuckles, 
Fresh-grated fingertips -
a splash of cooking oil on the wrist,
the tantalizing whiff of Crisco
with just a note of fried skin.
Is this some new level of geriatric unwinding –
A developmental milestone? “Oh,” they say,
“he’s in his ‘easy bleeding’ years.”
The doctors always ask if I’ve fallen.
I never fall. I shuffle 
headlong into cupboards, blinded
by volatile oils.