Baba & Zeda’s morning kitchen

asleep on arrival
and carried as luggage
in through the side door,
passing though a kitchen’s promise
during a dream of loud kisses

waking late to a yellowing day,
that smells like Saint Louis
always will: Baba and Zeda,
furniture with a generation
of living, layers of boiled coffee,
and now fresh-made waffles

in the house’s heart,
sun coming in,
dining room going out,
pantry storing downstairs,
laundry chute behind the walls,
and in the window, something
that doesn’t have a name:

curve-cut wood
that frames the light
into a design
I’ve never seen before
or since, the sign
of make it nice,
hold fast, make due,
rain or snow,
catch this prism of
I love you