on monday the ghost kitchen is full of grandmothers, two exactly, one to stretch the phyllo dough over the formica table for burek or maybe pita and the other making coffee in a moka pot for the angels, round after round after round, you can smell it before you even open the door.

on tuesday it’s north cumberland again, luo yang beside me and we are folding dumplings, her hands are quicker than mine, slim fingers all a blur. through my peripheral vision i can see her in those orange leggings (where did she get her clothes? I always wondered and never asked) but if i turn to look she is simply not there.

wednesdays it’s a long table outside the church, an american woman saying i should go to oviedo, there’s work to be had for someone like me. am i from argentina? this because of my accent and the way i say acá. pan y vino someone else says and i say por el camino to complete the circle. one glass is all it takes on my empty stomach to see me walking in serpentine curls down the road for a good half a mile.

on thursday i’m frying pork chops because you will be back on your break soon, your sister at my side teasing me, what are you some kind of wifey? secretly pleased, thinking so what if i am? and yes.

fridays the ghost kitchen prepares all those sauces i used to make, the ones with the cognac that i would set on fire. nothing like fire to make you feel like you’re really doing something. the kitchen narrows until it is no wider than one adult body, mine. the things i used to make in that one. remember? the cognac burned blue.

saturday is simple fare, those end of the month back of the cupboard meals, we called them goulash and i misheard ghoulish and they were, but they weren’t nothing. lately i think about how i say that a lot: well it isn’t nothing. on saturday i’m going to chew on that a bit i think.

you don’t have to be dead to be a ghost, this is a fact: on sundays when i walk into the ghost kitchen i meet my own self rushing out, the ancient fridge in the hallway making that rumbling noise that i used to say was its stomach growling. wearing one of those cropped t shirts, little concave stripe of belly below it, when we pass each other we are close enough to taste each other’s breath. she tastes hungry.