April
I walk through the rundown neighborhood
to the rundown neighborhood market to buy a bottle of soy sauce.
Soy sauce for the dinner I was
preparing to make.
Because I forgot to buy it earlier when
I was at the grocery store.
Earlier, when the sun was warm and
bright and the dirty snow shone with drops of water held suspended
for a shimmer of a moment only to fall and be replaced by another
quivering globe of bright shimmering melting.
But now, it's later.
I walk past dirty snowbanks, refrozen.
Dirty puddles filmed with ice.
Old bags and discarded papers catch in
the wind like tails or wings.
The gray pink early spring sky that
earlier had offered warmth like a kindness
cools as the sun slides smoothly away
like the well manicured regretful wave of a newly wed princess
leaving the balcony and the adoring crowds below.
Inside the dirty little store, smells
sweet, oily, smells of boiled coffee. Stale cigarette vapors off the
jacket of a slight man, plegmy, coughing into the beer cooler.
The cracked linoleum shows planks
beneath, the floor sighs quietly with every shift every step.
Single rolls of toilet paper wrapped in
white tissue paper, beer, in bottles in cans, powdered doughnuts in
windowed boxes, canned cat food, Cream of Wheat, Vienna Sausages in
their flip-top can, boxed macaroni and cheese that rattle like
maracas if you shake them which I don't, long loaves of cheap white
bread, small jars of peanut butter, cellophaned bricks of Ramen
noodles, and a there, on the top shelf, a dusty bottle of soy sauce.
I think, they probably don't sell much
soy sauce here.
I wonder, how long has this bottle of
soy sauce has been on the shelf?
I worry, what about an expiration date,
has it gone past?
I remind myself; fermentation.
The date doesn't really matter.
Some things keep.
The woman behind the counter sighs.
She jokes, “Is it Friday yet?”
I say, “Almost.”
She asks, “Would you like a bag?”
I say, “Yes. Please.”
The idea of walking down the street
with a bottle of soy sauce unbagged seems strange to me.
I grip the brown paper wrapped bottle
by the neck.
I think, this is an odd bird,
I think, I'm a weird wino with my brown
bagged bottle of soy sauce.
A sensible drunk man, gray and thin,
a case of Pabst under his arm, holds
the door for me.
He takes the worn wooden
stairs with a certain gravitas,
one worn boot
at a time
with a pause to make sure his footing
is sure and true against the tilt and whirl of the Earth spinning.
He says, “It's about time.”
Being from around here I know he means,
Spring.
I say, “Yes. It's about time.”
The drunk man, oddly graceful, leans
over the curb into the wind
and across the street and for some
reason he reminds me of a ship.
I walk home, gracelessly sober, heavy
on my feet,
thinking about the word “wino”--
understanding the impulse to drink
oneself into grace.
The wind picks up, cold, blowing grit
into my eyes.
Walking up the drive, squinting, light
from the old milk-glass lamp through the white lace curtains makes me
nostalgic for a thing I haven't yet lost
or haven't yet found
or have but misplaced
I can't be sure
I don't remember
it doesn't matter.
In through the back door, into the
yellow kitchen, I shuck my black wool coat,
hang it on a peg on the wall
unwind my scarf from my neck like
unbinding and hang it with my coat.
I pour red wine, Malbec if you want to
know, into my favorite glass, a small Ball jar once filled with jelly
made by a friend in a hot kitchen from berries fresh picked by her
own hands, berries still warm from the summer sun when they were
poured from an enamel colander into a heavy stainless steel pot with
cupfuls of white sugar like white sand.
I think this every time I pour myself a
glass of wine, if my wine glass jelly jar is dirty and I choose
another glass instead of washing,
the absence of the jar reminds me of
the jar.
The wine tastes like an attic, July,
warm wood, sour berries, sunshine, dust motes, old books.
I think, this wine is a good wine made
from good grapes ripened in a warm place by a warm sun
a place where spring comes at a
reasonable hour and lingers late on the veranda
with drinks after dinner.
I start the rice.
I slice tofu for my daughter and beef
for my boy, I put them in separate bowls.
I pour long streams of soy sauce into
each bowl, add thin slices of pithy ginger to each, crush four garlic
cloves with the flat of the knife blade -- two for each
add a splash of balsamic vinegar, red
peppers, yellow peppers, broccoli.
In the next room the children argue.
They are hungry I think.
as I stir the frying food.
Yes.
Dinner is late.
We three sit at the scarred wooden
table, we laugh and then set to arguing and then careen to laughter
as quickly as the melting spring turned back to winter.
We all agree between mouthfuls
that this soy sauce is
the best.
My son says this with the fervor and
zeal of a new convert,
he proclaims with his mouth full, rice
falls, sticks to his shirt and chin,
somehow he manages to spit rice on the
dog, the sticky rice adheres to the long black fur; the dog is not
bothered.
My son says, forgetting to buy soy
sauce at the grocery store was a kind of lucky. Without forgetting
there wouldn't be this
The Best Soy Sauce.
We wouldn't have known.
We never would have known.
Lucky forgetting.
I think, Yes.
He's right.
I tell him so.
I clear the table, leave the greasy
plates and bowls spoons and forks, glasses with the lip and finger
prints, on the counter next to the sink, for later.
I think, the dishes, they're not going
anywhere, what's the hurry.
I think, they'll keep.
My daughter hums a melody that I can't
place.
Looking out through the window I see my
own face,
the wind blows last year's fall leaves
against the screens, sounds like June bugs.
I pull on my gray sweater, I think
about starting the furnace.
My son laughs and tries to pick the
rice from the dog's long black fur. The dog is not bothered.
I think, forgetting is a kind of luck,
I think,
some things keep --
I think, there is proof of time passing
and proof of time held suspended in a drop.
I think --
some things keep
like summer fruit or soy sauce.
They keep
they keep
they keep
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