Cold Stove

I stand before the cold stove,

fingers hover, useless, uncertain.

No pilot light, no glow,

a lesson lost in years of noise.

That sudden chill—metal, dark—

reminds me now, safety’s not a guess.

Too late, the gas is off, the warmth gone,

a frozen pot, the kitchen’s silence.

If I’d only learned the flame’s quiet warnings,

like a whisper caught in a gust,

I might have held the heat, kept the cold away.

But now the dark is all I touch.

Hands fail to turn on what’s gone,

a lesson burned out before the morning,

waiting for a spark that’s never coming,

stuck cold in the place I cook and live.