It Feels Good to Cook Rice
it feels good to cook rice
it feels heavy to cook rice
it feels familiar
good
& heavy to cook rice
when I cook rice
it is because hunger is not just
an emptiness
but a longing for multo:
the dead who no longer linger
two fingers in water
I know just when to stop:
right under the second knuckle
in the morning chew it
with salted egg
in the evening chew it
with salted onion
at midnight eat it
slovenly
with your peppered hands licking
relishing each cloudmorsel
sucking greedy as if
there will no longer be any such thing
as rice
good
is not the idea of pleasure
rather
it is the way
I once trippedspilled a basket
of hulls & stones onto soil —
homely sprinkle of husks
as if for a sending off —
how right it was: palms
brushing the chalk of it
swirls rising in streaking sun
heavy
is not the same as burden
rather it is falling rice
as ghostly footfalls —
trickling mounds
scattered on wood —
my dead lolo in compression socks
my dead lola in red slippers scuffing
& a slew of yesterday’s titos & titas
their voices traveling to me
tinny ringing
as if from yesterday’s nova
familiar just
what it sounds like
family
blood
home
marrow
bone
grit
calcified memories
of things that feel good
& heavy
calcified
as in made stronger by mountain sun
only to have them crumble
after enough time has passed
(just like the mountain forgot what it used to be)
still
it feels good to cook rice
it feels good to eat rice even by myself
& it feels familiar to know
with each grain I swallow
I strap myself to my own
heavy
hunger
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