Yeah, put the leftovers in one of the jars on the second shelf;
no, I know there’s a lid that fits, I promise
I’m working on a new organization system for the pile up there,
what a mess! I need to learn how to let go
of every exponential almond butter jar I am compelled to keep
like, I have to drive 30 minutes and back to recycle glass &
what good am I doing for the environment then!
Once a year or so I go through reckoning, admitting
I will never use 10 wine bottles to house stolen wildflowers from evening walks,
Or 100 sauce jars for overnight oatmeal;
I clear the cabinet into a sturdy box,
carry it to the trunk of my Camry and
let the melancholy subsume me:
I buy shampoo in plastic bottles again,
stop setting timers for showers,
order fast fashion online,
wallow, until!
OH
something moves me and I frenzy;
sew produce bags from shirt scraps,
stare hard at the crying turkey chicks in the town and country store ($19 each),
search online at 4am for “how hard is it to grow backyard wheat”
knowing fully
I can’t handle the reality of what any of that entails;
patching up wounds from pecking orders,
rasing death for eggs
having to harvest, to crush, only to, in autumn,
Plant.
All.
Over.
Again
Still–
it feels good when I close my eyes;
I daydream yet,
& at the co-op buy “ local”, grind
with a mortar and pestle the berries
crush the bran, let the germ release oil until nothing from them can grow;
my hands in the bowl, in the salt, in the water
clay-like, a process on loop over and over centuries back,
seeds and fungus together in heat
punched down, rising
all these lives dying twice for us,
to be eaten or forgotten, consumed by mold instead–
take that for a resurrection!
Anyway, sorry– what did you want for breakfast tomorrow?
I made us english muffins, but fuck
I forgot to buy any cheese.
Carmen E Brady lives and makes things in rural Arizona. She is the author and illustrator of the full length collection Someday I’m Going to Be So So Happy (2017) and several chapbooks. She has been published in print and online in several journals, including JMWW, Hobart, Cotton Xenomorph, among others. Find her online on twitter @therealcbrad or on instagram @dispassiontea.