The stove is off. The kitchen is dimmer now. Just the light over the sink and whatever’s left in the room.

The food is done but not resolved. Two bowls. Two pans. Two small piles of scraps that didn’t make it.

I plate it like a compromise without negotiation.

The components go adjacent. Not stirred together. Rice here. Greens there. Sauce pooled on one side. Pickled things scattered on the other. A fork has to gather both or it isn’t really a bite.

First bite is sharp, then soft. Second bite, the soft softens the sharp. Third bite, a rhythm starts.

There are mistakes in it.

Too much anchovy. Too much cream. They cancel in places. Not perfectly. Enough. The tongue sorts it quietly without asking permission.

A lemon wedge sits on the plate with teeth marks in it. Both hands used it. A small theft. No rule against it.

On the table there’s a real candle, because I keep forgetting to buy more batteries for the flashlight. The wax smell is faint, but it’s there. LED candles don’t smell like anything. That’s the thing about them. Wax drips, cools, leaves a little stain on the tablecloth. The cloth goes in the wash later, or it doesn’t.

There’s an urge, halfway through, to mash it all together. To fix it. To make it one thing. The fork keeps going as it is.

Metal on ceramic. Not a photo moment. Just eating.

After, the leftovers go into mismatched containers. Tomorrow’s lunch waits with the wrong lid on it. A paper towel from earlier, used as a lid because the proper lid is missing, sits oil-spotted on the counter.

The burn on my thumb throbs when I wash my hands. Warm water finds it immediately.

Later I open a notebook and try to reverse-engineer the dish into steps. First the anchovy, then the egg. Or the other way. The page stays blank longer than it should. The collision was the method. Left hand did this while right hand did that, and the “while” is the part that won’t sit still long enough to write.

The cutting board has a new stain that won’t come out. A small green shadow where the herbs were crushed. The grooves keep what they’re given.

I wash the plate. The kitchen returns to one person.

The aftertaste hangs around. Salt and lemon. Cream and brine. The thumb remembers heat.

The wooden spoon gets dried and put back in the drawer. The handle’s dark spot stays.