Down, damned and drained, the people are fed,
and we, the oil wet and ginger hot white clad
chefs and cooks wipe away the stains and remains
of all the worlds we prepared today.
Talk about the music, the poetry, the great novel,
the sculptures and the etchings that wait
in our homes and lofts, studios and practice spaces,
talk about the power of the pure art of food
and how with this labor we are stronger in our lives.
Laugh about scholastics, the locked rooms of history,
the little cabals of workshops and creative programs,
hell, we live it, we sweat it, we form it every hour,
and we know the soul of what Zen is, heaven,
and we know the truth of labor and the dollar,
that this art is of the body and the spirit,
of the world and of the long story of what food is.
We, the chefs and cooks, waiters, bartenders, warewashers
and food runners, we see you at your finest and your worst,
and we write you, play you, act you, sculpt you,
you are our material after the day is done,
and yet, you in turn are our critic, our wives and husbands,
our jealous lovers, our tender sex, the guest
whose tastes show when we’re right or wrong,
when the colors match, when flavors combine,
the immediate response we crave and live for,
yeah, it all turns around, the sauce reduced six hours ago
travels your lips and brings the smile we waited
all day just to see, and we are the secret pulse of the sensual
in lives that are filled we denial and restraint,
we demand you give in, you explore, you adore,
we are the artists on the margin who live for art,
who work for art, who do it for the love and not the money.
Work? It’s love. It’s dedication.
We are here truly for each other, never touching,
never seeing, never really knowing, but we share
and we complement, we cannot live without the other.
