Recipe For Six

Take down the blue bowl,
the one with the hairline crack.
It makes exactly five cups of batter
if you scrape it clean with an off-color spatula.

Use the metal spoon,
the one with the bent handle.
You bent it last spring,
and no one has bothered to fix it.

Melt the butter, unsalted.
Slice the onions thin, almost see-through.
Wait for them to soften and brown
until the kitchen smells like-

Turn on the fan.
Maybe light a candle.

Add the tomatoes.
Add the wine you saved
for reasons you could never remember.
That bottle was decor for ages.

Taste. Add salt.
Taste again.
Better.

Set six plates.

The first five are ordinary:
White, with a navy blue ring,
left in the dish rack
after your last wash and dry.

For the sixth,
leave the plastic dish.
The only one that wouldn't break,
just in case you-

Do not place a chair in the spot.
Do not fill the glass.
Do not suggest for a moment
that a chair once belonged there.

Serve five portions.
Leave the sixth in the pot.
A smaller portion that would have satisfied
when your appetite started-

When someone asks if there is more,
say yes.

After dinner, wash five plates.
Rinse the spoon.
Put away the blue bowl
but don't look inside it.

On the counter,
label one container:

Makes Six Servings

Beneath it, where the name goes,
leave the line blank
long enough
for nobody to fill it in.

In the morning,
throw away the sixth portion
without opening the fridge.

Keep the container.