~ after Ada Limon
Sometimes when we are eating
or putting more slices of bread
in the toaster or a pod into
the coffeemaker, I’ll feel some slow
loop inside me, as if that planetary
system under the skin knows I am almost
sixty. Maybe there are asteroids jostling
for space, or holes opening up where
there were none. I tell you I’ve had
this cough for more than a month now,
that it’s been going around; that a dull ache
resides somewhere in the vicinity of my left
shoulder, and another in the pocket under
my spine. Remember when we were children
and at birthdays, our mothers would make
a dish of noodles? They’d insist no strand
should be cut or broken: for long life, good
health— hungry mouths slurping up what the fork
or chopsticks coiled and lifted together, steaming
with all that luck. Living here now, we’ve come
to change many ways we do things. Instant ramen,
elbow macaroni stranded in cheese and thickened
cream. When I lift the boxes out of the pantry,
dry pasta rattles its reprimand of I-told-you-so.