Mr. and Mrs. Jack Sprat in the Kitchen

(Mona Van Duyn, poet laureate, 1992-1993)

MR. AND MRS. JACK SPRAT IN THE KITCHEN

“About half a box,”
I say, and the male
weighs his pasta sticks
on our postal scale.

To support my sauce
of a guesswork rhymer
he boils by the laws
of electric timer.

Our joint creation,
my searchings, revisions,
tossed with his ration
of compulsive precisions,

so mimics life
we believe it mandated
that God had a wife
who collaborated.

And cracked, scraped, old,
still the bowl glows gold.

~ Mona Van Duyn (1921-2004), American poet