winter kitchen

— m. tolen —

the kitchen, in winter, is its own small country. the stove keeps the borders warm. the kettle is the parliament, the bread is the patient population. at four o'clock the lamp declares us open and we receive whatever cold comes through the door.

field note · reader tolen lived a long winter in a single low kitchen and wrote nothing of the rest of the house. she said the rest of the house was not, that year, an honest place.