Why there are instructions for extending the life of the rice cooker
Each day
one
by
one
they inspect the grains.
The three women carefully
separate bad / from / good.
Rice forms
the meal’s foundation
They work rapidly, but with the precise rhythms of a thousand days: sorting, washing, cooking.
Poured from the old appliance,
the rice gleams
in a large blue bowl.
The women spread
other dishes on our table.
Beans, vegetables, pumpkin stew, chicken, piña, malanga.
But no bananas. The rains have washed out / a bridge /
into the city,
and there are shortages now.
Less to distinguish
bad/from/good.
While we eat,
they clean the kitchen.
Government vehicles
drive through the neighborhood,
by the embassies.
To impress foreign dignitaries,
it has been commanded that the fronts
of houses be painted like pastel sunsets and tropical fruits.
The back sides
will be
left
peeling—
a rotting fruta bomba
I saw abandoned yesterday
on the sidewalk. Two roosters
pecked at it, not distinguishing
badfromgood.