Jiro Dreams of Sushi

The gods do not interest him, nor their debris, nor their terrible storms: he already knows how a body is made to glow, precursor to neon lights — how hunger is hereditary. Sons should not be haunted except by the dead, and his father is sober now, accepts tribute in silence and Coca-Cola. He is thankful for strong knees, for momentum that lives in the mouth and the hands. Here is the fish with the filigree scales, here is the pot of rice — here, here: the grain of rice that makes the bowl a bowl. Tuna’s blood hardening in the water. Here is the night through which he runs, realizing the floor has turned to tissue paper, tearing into morning. No, the gods do not compel him: he cannot bear the sight of the sun, an open sore — prefers the colors of its setting, how they reflect the ocean’s currents, always giving rise to something new or something he has forgotten. The sky as a table, mounds of rice glazed with soy, gleaming like a display of mackerel, like snow general upon the island’s winter spine. Days parade in their uniform; hearts attack, close markets, open new ones. He teaches his sons to gut fish, does not despair his own hands’ speed: salt bandaging a cut, memory fraying at the edges. Reaching, always — the top of the ladder, buried in light —