I.
Shift-work means most nights I cook for my love;
finding new recipes an unending adventure.
This night, his dinner break brings me these messaged words:
“This would be *delicious* with pork!”
I reply how it fills my heart,
to hear what I prepared excites, makes him happy.
There is warmth & satiety, from both chilies and kindness.  

II.
First l-t-r told me a story,
early on,
of a late-night campfire discussion
where one, long-committed
vowed he so loved his spouse
that he would, if asked
‘pick the corn
 from her shit
 and eat it’.
His voice, dripping with ridicule & revulsion in the re-telling
should have been a warning: ocean receding from the shore.
His utter frustration with my lack
of emotion-response reciprocation
(I shrugged it off,
already intimately familiar
with the realities of devotion)
should have been a claxon.  

III.
Three delectable, enduring truths:  
– Genetically, for me: Food is Love
– Unequivocally: Love is Verb and Noun
– Reality: has the capability to erode even
  mountain-solid love. Creativity though,
  turns ground-stone to mortar
  to masa
  baking & building continually anew.