You would happily fix it for one. This is the lie. That food is prepared to be eaten. I cooked for her night after night, without question or measure, as vocabulary.
Ivy liked bouillabaisse on her birthday – not with fennel or Pernod, with fennel and Pernod. A greedy doubling I indulged. Atop her bowl a parsley garnish. An unspoken grace.
In the kitchen, on the plate, a language of broth and bone, silence, and eager seconds.
Our uneasy communion. Two halves made whole.
That half the whole is desired is a dark consideration. A simmering down. A cup inching closer to empty. Evaporated of what was.
Two teaspoons become one, two bulbs one.
She was brilliant and kind and deserved to be told so. I was afraid the words would fatten her. That she would eat and eat, and hand placed on belly say no more. I am full of you.
Four cloves two, two pinches one.
When I was young, my father took me to dinner, the restaurant quiet and too nice for us. A man dined alone at a neighboring table. Across from him a baseball cap on a dinner plate. “AIDS,” dad whispered.
Until softened, until fragrant, until done.
Half the tomato. Half the rouille. Half the bread. The pink toque Ivy knitted when she lost her hair. The space between it and me. A steaming bowl under spoon. A sprig of something never said.
Michael Murphy’s fiction has appeared in Conjunctions, Notre Dame Review, and La Piccioletta Barca, among others. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee and finalist for the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize. Home is currently Florida and formerly London, where Michael wrote a satirical column for the Hampstead Village Voice.
No comments:
Post a Comment