{"id":4312,"date":"2011-08-01T00:10:32","date_gmt":"2011-08-01T05:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"\/nashvillereview\/?p=4312"},"modified":"2015-02-17T10:10:23","modified_gmt":"2015-02-17T16:10:23","slug":"on-hunger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/4312","title":{"rendered":"On Hunger"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am thinking of the verb “to conspire,”
\n_____<\/span>of urgency and stasis,
\n__________<\/span>of places we intended to travel,
\n_______________<\/span>of delicacies I wish I had baked for you.
\n____________________<\/span>Of wishes. Of you.<\/p>\n

I am thinking of the book of names,
\n_____<\/span>how it tells me that yours was a contraction.
\n__________<\/span>I am thinking of how Augustine became Austin,
\n_______________<\/span>how saint is muddled with brother,
\n____________________<\/span>how all things turn to absence.<\/p>\n

I am thinking of how I vowed to leave things as you had known them,
\n_____<\/span>how I had purchased new paint for my kitchen
\n__________<\/span>(the color of blueberries)
\n_______________<\/span>but now, months later, it remains in its can,
\n____________________<\/span>abandoned to a room I rarely enter.<\/p>\n

I am thinking of how I meet each day in a black v-neck shirt,
\n_____<\/span>one of the five I bought the week of your funeral.
\n__________<\/span>I am thinking of how my body has started to rebel,
\n_______________<\/span>how this morning, after I zipped my favorite skirt,
\n____________________<\/span>I felt it slip to the floor, my hips suddenly too slender to hold it.<\/p>\n

I am thinking of how I\u2019ve forgotten how to eat,
\n_____<\/span>how the chanterelles I planned to saut\u00e9 have languished in my refrigerator,
\n__________<\/span>how the citrus, now mushy, caves in when I try to cradle it,
\n_______________<\/span>how the cilantro leaves look like lily pads, brown with slime.
\n____________________<\/span>I am thinking of decay.<\/p>\n

I am thinking of how I called you on the night before you tried to die,
\n_____<\/span>how my husband was making pasta,
\n__________<\/span>how the evening seemed lovely and safe,
\n_______________<\/span>how we felt extravagant\u2014cooking with real butter,
\n____________________<\/span>with cream, with two types of cheese.<\/p>\n

I remember how as you talked,
\n_____<\/span>the kitchen filled with the scent of garlic, lemon, mint.
\n__________<\/span>I remember that the meal was filling.
\n_______________<\/span>I am thinking of how reckless we were,
\n____________________<\/span>how we left the dishes for morning.<\/p>\n

I am wondering if, that night, you had already decided.
\n_____<\/span>I am thinking of those dinner dishes, how the next morning,
\n__________<\/span>the call came, and we left them still unwashed.
\n_______________<\/span>I remember how on every day I spent in Alabama
\n____________________<\/span>(by your deathbed, at your grave, cleaning out your kitchen)<\/p>\n

I thought of how we would return home to mold,
\n_____<\/span>how things must be sprouting on the remnants of our meal.
\n__________<\/span>I remember doing research,
\n_______________<\/span>reading about mycotoxins, Rhizopus, Penicillium.
\n____________________<\/span>I remember sounding out the words,<\/p>\n

preparing for what might await.
\n_____<\/span>I remember how, each time someone well-meaning
\n__________<\/span>spoke of how you\u2019d become one of the angels I don\u2019t believe in,
\n_______________<\/span>I imagined fuzzy white halos encircling tangles of moss.
\n____________________<\/span>I remember a vision:<\/p>\n

something that looked like cotton candy
\n_____<\/span>spreading across my favorite skillet.
\n__________<\/span>I remember thinking it would probably be one of those lethal molds,
\n_______________<\/span>remember thinking that it looked lovely anyhow.
\n____________________<\/span>I remember how, after being gone for three weeks,<\/p>\n

I walked into the house and realized that nothing had grown in our absence.
\n_____<\/span>I am thinking of how I stood over those dishes and wept,
\n__________<\/span>how desperately I had hoped to witness something thriving,
\n_______________<\/span>how even if it was invasive,
\n____________________<\/span>I needed to watch it blossom.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Wade<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am thinking of the verb “to conspire,” _____of urgency and stasis, __________of places we intended to travel, _______________of delicacies I wish I had baked for you. ____________________Of wishes. Of you. I am thinking of the book of names, _____how it tells me that yours was a contraction. __________I am thinking of how Augustine became […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-17y","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4312"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4312"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10309,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4312\/revisions\/10309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}