100 Food poems

For years he lived close enough to smell chicken and bananas rotting in the trash bins, to surprise a cashier on break smoking something suspicious when he walked out the back gate. Did they have an account? He can’t remember. Probably so, for all the milk a large family went through, the last-minute ingredients delivered by a smirking bag boy. He liked to go himself, the parking lot’s radiant heat erased once he got past the sweating glass door, to troll the icy aisles in his slippers. This was before high-end labels took over shelf space, before baloney changed its name to mortadella, before water came in flavors, before fish got flown in from somewhere else.

peach of a grape in his fingertips like holding home he noses its musk Taste, he says and parts my lips with a globe and a thumb I lick I bite the thick skin His Arkansas aches sweet on my tongue His hand vines my chin my throat My face flames To the lady on the bus he brags Her blush comes from my touch.

I forgot forget amnesia was lost to me then a smooth fur-free fruit unnamed for days until I found it ripe on my tongue

Over the river, and through the wood, To grandfather's house we go; The horse knows the way, To carry the sleigh, Through the white and drifted snow. Over the river, and through the wood, To grandfather's house away! We would not stop For doll or top, For 't is Thanksgiving day. Over the river, and through the wood, Oh, how the wind does blow! It stings the toes, And bites the nose, As over the ground we go. Over the river, and through the wood, With a clear blue winter sky, The dogs do bark, And children hark, As we go jingling by. Over the river, and through the wood, To have a first-rate play — Hear the bells ring Ting a ling ding, Hurra for Thanksgiving day! Over the river, and through the wood — No matter for winds that blow; Or if we get The sleigh upset, Into a bank of snow. Over the river, and through the wood, To see little John and Ann; We will kiss them all, And play snow-ball, And stay as long as we can. Over the river, and through the wood, Trot fast, my dapple grey! Spring over the ground, Like a hunting hound, For 't is Thanksgiving day! Over the river, and through the wood, And straight through the barn-yard gate; We seem to go Extremely slow, It is so hard to wait. Over the river, and through the wood, Old Jowler hears our bells; He shakes his pow, With a loud bow wow, And thus the news he tells. Over the river, and through the wood — When grandmother sees us come, She will say, Oh dear, The children are here, Bring a pie for every one. Over the river, and through the wood — Now grandmother's cap I spy! Hurra for the fun! Is the pudding done? Hurra for the pumpkin pie!

To wake when all is possible before the agitations of the day have gripped you To come to the kitchen and peel a little basketball for breakfast To tear the husk like cotton padding        a cloud of oil misting out of its pinprick pores clean and sharp as pepper To ease each pale pink section out of its case so carefully       without breaking a single pearly cell To slide each piece into a cold blue china bowl the juice pooling       until the whole fruit is divided from its skin and only then to eat so sweet a discipline precisely pointless       a devout involvement of the hands and senses a pause     a little emptiness each year harder to live within each year harder to live without

There was a melon fresh from the garden So ripe the knife slurped As it cut it into six slices. The children were going back to school. Their mother, passing out paper plates, Would not live to see the leaves fall. I remember a hornet, too, that flew in Through the open window Mad to taste the sweet fruit While we ducked and screamed, Covered our heads and faces, And sat laughing after it was gone.

His mother came (she said) from salt so fed him salt. Raised to wolf white roots and dirt she fed him dirt.

You feed us milkfish stew and long grain rice, make us eat blood soup with chili peppers, and frown at us when we lose our appetite. I remember when I was young and you told me of that monsoon: the Japanese Occupation— stories of a time before you met my father, when you learned the language of an occupied city in order to feed your family. You were the pretty one at seventeen, your skin, white as milkfish. The pretty ones, you said, were always given more food— the Japanese soldiers sentried above the loft where you worked dropped sweet yams, and you caught them by the billow of your skirt. I remember you in sepia-brown photographs as a mestiza who equated liberation with Hershey bars and beige nylons from American GIs— and the season of the monsoon as dark as hunger was not about suffering but what you knew of beauty.

Mix a pancake, Stir a pancake, Pop it in the pan; Fry the pancake, Toss the pancake— Catch it if you can.

Does Rhea think? Does Rhea think? Does Rhea think? Does Rhea think? Does Rhea think? Does Rhea think? Does Rhea think? Does Rhea think? Does Rhea think? Does Rhea think?