Nicolaus Copernicus In My Mother's New Kitchen

The centre of it all, he says,
is her Russell Hobbes kettle.

Everything revolves around it -
is drawn to it like the sun.

And the steam that gushes forth from
its snout, rising towards that distant

satellite the light bulb - it mesmerises
him, as does the sound of its boiling.

Look - he can't stop switching it on and off.
He moves to her cooking tools, the

stainless steel specula that hang,
with the teflon pans (carelessly burned,

he thinks), above her hob. He takes
an egg whisk, diagnostic in the handling,

the plastic unfamiliar to his touch.
As for the white casket that stands

against the wall, well, who is to be
buried in that, he wonders ?

Mother's new kitchen is a peculiar universe
straddling the known and the unknown.

It is heliocentric, scented by liquids
and detergents, constructed by a synthetic God.

Copernicus warms himself near the fan-oven,
wipes the formica: slow, slow equalizing circles.