One bite at a time
my mother says as it sits there
in my kitchen
blowing dish-soap bubbles
through its pool-noodle nose.
Did you ever choke
on a hotel’s indoor pool water then ask
for an Altoid to relish
the minty burn against your throat?
Remember that feeling;
now add a crisp, rhythmic tickity tick
like acrylic nails on wood.
That’s how it feels, with it sitting there:
You are breathless,
blinded by your own innovation,
relishing the tang,
but something tells you
you’ve taken too long
losing your breath
and they have gone on without you.
I know the way to make it stop —
It’s bit
by bit by bit but
the thought makes me
rub the bridge of my nose.
Why would (how can) I eat something
so full of memories?
Full of:
black and gold
pastels and grays,
a floor that squeaked in
all the right places.
A stereo that still played
CDs and sometimes we
played the same one over
and over again
because we couldn’t find anything else
to match the evening’s beat.
The smell of early 2000s laundry detergent —
They just don’t make it like they used to.
Because if they did I think
I’d maybe drown myself in it
(Not literally, perhaps the word is douse)
douse myself in it, fall behind,
rather than take that first gulping bite.
Then I would smell like
I could still wake up and
read 100 books in a summer.
Perhaps I could leave it here
in all its wrinkled, muddied glory
walk out the open door and slip into the grass,
a Dobsonfly in the summer.
But is the open door deep green
like the shutters
on a yellow house
in the suburbs?
Where I dropped my ballerina book
out the window once because my mother
was removing the Christmas wreaths in early January.
And the screens were out, leaving
a space vulnerable for words.
The door is cranberry now,
the space occupied by trinkets and plants and
that thing, hulking and passive.
And I wonder: If I did it
— took a bite —
would it taste
like peach yogurt, no chunks,
in little plastic vats we’d then dip our
paintbrushes in when we made a mess of things?
Would it get torn, mashed, swallowed,
carried, slid, submerged, before
dissolving into indiscernible pieces?
I’ve never understood
the difference between “should” and “can”
But perhaps I will learn
when I take the first bite.
