A History of the Ancient World

Black and intricately caverned, an iron
king, enthroned in his kitchen kingdom,
Stove gave us hat and food and food as his mood
dictated. But as likely he would smoke
or sulk, distant and imperial and cold--
an Egyptian monument, pre-rosetta
stone.

        Only my mother, cunning, deferential,
her mind rich with the Greek she'd studied
in her youth, could solve Stove's riddles. A kitchen
Oedipus, she'd poke and shake, rearrange
the kindling and chips in hieroglyphs
more pleasing to Stove's mood, and all his joints
would pop with satisfaction.

                    She might pause,
taking china down, gaze out the window
to scrutinize hr garden in the light
of reason's dream, or dip some now-warm
water from the reservoir, her own face deep
and shimmering there. When she died our aunt
came. A Roman legion in herself, she peered
once into Stove's oven, saw only  rust,
banged the warming cabinets, pried open
the reservoir--but would not stay to see
herself in dusty water. "Get rid of this"
she said. The thing was done. Where Stove had been
a gleaming range now stood. Such as
I now touch, summoning heat from far away.