Raw

The woman in the video cuts a head of cabbage 
into wedges, sears them in a skillet. 

Butter browns and sizzles. She flips them over 
and waits for the other side to char.

Some aromas from the kitchen take me back to another time.

Memory is a slow cooker sometimes; and at other times
a deep fryer.

If you rub a lemon slice across your fingers it takes
away the garlic smell. 

Pour water into the half-shell of durian and wash 
your hands in that basin.

I have heard groups of women whispering about another
woman using words for musk and stink, flesh and fruit.

They're the type who warn that certain fruits, when eaten 
during your period, tinge your blood foul and sour.

In the foothills of Mt. Banahaw, there are legends 
of a woodland deity. During a famine, she gently pinched 
the sides of poisonous fruit and made them sweet. 

The anthropologist who did field work in the heart 
of the rainforest proposed that cooking food marked 
the difference between nature and culture.

When we are children, we taste the world in what we
pick up with our fingers— dandelion leaf, serviceberry,
green plum, water from the rust-slicked mouth of garden 
hose pressed against our own.