Red Boat or Rufina brands. Tiparos, which Martha
Stewart once pronounced “Tip-a-rose” on her show.
The amber distilled from anchovies packed into jars
and fermented for weeks with salt, sugar, and citrus,
until its potency becomes the whole ocean in a bottle.
You twist off the cap and tip a spoonful into the broth.
The blandest vegetable sings. Cubes of meat marbled
with fat glisten. Your fingers come away, pungent with
the stink of brine. Outside, torrents fall from a sky
the color of a cast iron pot. The intersections flood,
and in the underpass, cars bob in water. No one
should brave the streets on a night like this. Steam
beads the kitchen windows. The soup is ladled
into bowls of rice. Someone says, pass the sauce.
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