Protocol

Black tie, no shorts or T's, no flip-flops. My husband 
reminds me it also means a set of rules enabling 

computers to communicate with each other, despite 
differences in their processors or design— 

I imagine rows of computers humming and 
chattering in a darkened writing lab, then falling 

silent when someone comes in and turns on the lights. 
Sometimes protocol can seem like the scar that's there 

as reminder of some kind of trauma—how in many 
Asian families, including our own, the pantry is never 

organized just for neatness or regularity in shape, 
size, and gradation of containers. The 25-lb. bag of rice 

will only fit in one corner of the guest room. Nothing 
is either just too much, or too little. Nothing is out 

of place or thrown away. There are little tins of sardines 
in tomato sauce stacked next to a bag filled with every 

soy sauce packet from every takeout meal we've ordered 
since the pandemic, next to 3 large containers of Norton 

salt, with the spout. A sniff test usually convinces  
we can eat packaged food items a little past their sell-by 

or expiry dates. How many times have we heard  
uncles' and grandparents' stories of eating only a palm-

ful of rice flavored with salt for months during the war?
A chapter title in a book—Readers Like Pleasure

but They Adore Pain—makes me stop and wonder
if this is true, and how. A woman sizzled a wet rag

in a hot pan  just so neighbors passing her kitchen window
would hear the sound and not think they had nothing to eat.