Poetry

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.