Nothing went to waste:
sweetened skins from gourds,
pickled rinds as edible
scherenschnitte. Their seeds,
sprinkled with salt and roasted
on a tray— we cracked them
between our teeth while gossiping
on Sunday afternoons. We snipped
every last button from shirts
rubbed thin at the elbows,
and saved them like coins
in jars. I loved best the ones
covered with lattice strips
of leather— each nubbed
surface, a little luxury.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- The season turns again
- Hyperphagia
- We woke and the world was colder,
- Own
- Excerpts
- Malarkey
- I wanted the taste of bitter greens
- Grief
- Autumn
- Cleft
- Decorum
- Sibilant Ghazal
- Hokkaido
- October
- Kabayan
- Thence
- Savasana
- Life Skills
- Dear Naga Buddha,
- Notes to/on the plagiarist
- The Empress of Malcolm Square
- Prelude
- 4 Etchings
- In One and the Same Moment
- Wayang Kulit
- Exit Interview (excerpt)
- And ever
- Openwork
- Necessity
- Canción sin fin
- Pavor Nocturnus
- If only the wind now dresses the trees
- Hinge
- November
- Elegy, even after 22 years
- Fleeting
- Osteon
- Outlast
- The years teach much that the days never know*
- Thin fog, as in the corners of a tintype—
- Resist