Marinara Sauce

Three clicks in equal intervals.

An audible countdown,

before a burst of cobalt flames

that frantically lick and twitch beneath a cage of black lattice.

San marzano whole tomatoes

simmering now for ninety minutes.

Skin turned thin and translucent

splitting like cracked desert floors.

Slippery seeds cocooned in gummy globs

spill from their ruptured tomato bellies.

Streaming into noisy olive oil puddles

that sizzle in staccato.

Inhabited by dancing garlic flecks

A pungent flash mob with no apparent choreography.

A sudden pop

catapulting minced garlic skyward

to greet hot air, wavy from refraction.

Mutilated tomatoes bathe in their mealy juices.

A bouquet of savory and sweet inhalations

and a pinch of herbs and spice,

that leave a splatter of green freckles on a blushing face.

A long handled ladle scoops

a sauce now under siege.

Transferred equally into three glass jars;

triplets waiting to be frozen.

Aromas and flavours abruptly muted.

No longer meant to whet appetites.

An unexpected coup d'état

before bon appétit.