The last section of the book contains quite a few poems
that deal with illness and with dealing
with the regimen of a controlling illness.
I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis about 20 years
ago or so, and have been exceedingly lucky
with my doctors and with my medication.
But there's always that moment when
life changes, all right, when you know that it changes,
and the first poem in this section, which
is called "Little Book of Woe," is that moment when
I got the final diagnosis.
Soup.
When the doctor said, "I've got good news and bad news,"
I thought of soup.
How long it had been since I had had
the homemade kind, the real deal, where you soak the beans
overnight and everything is apportioned in stages.
First, the onions and meat browned in oil.
Then the broth added for hours of simmering.
All that saturated glistening scent
stoking the house with memories.
The Jewish boy I kissed until we both sank to our knees
in the grass.
My mother's frown as she plucked weeds from my hair.
Oh, my mother will die from this.
My mother, whose soup is the best,
even though it was always over salted,
because it was labored over.
It was ladled out unconditionally,
tendered sweetly without consequences,
a nonjudicial love.
And it was always soup I got first thing in the sickbed.
And there's the way tomatoes are added at the last moment.
But the minor vegetables, peas, and corn,
and tiny diced potatoes come in 30 minutes before that.
And how the spices, ah, the spices, are to be
doled out sparingly.
Then waiting to see how strong they'd become in the brew.
Their hidden aptitudes unlocked only by time
in the heat of a burbling melange.
And the way my apron always got stained,
but I wouldn't wash it.
Proud of the mess for once, making mistakes, sloshing,
and dripping.
Yes, soup was what I wanted.
Not news, but the slow courage of the lentil as it softened,
its heart splitting into wings.
Not good cop, bad cop, but the swift metallic
smack of too much time administered hastily,
the kind of mistake you never make again.
Bread too.
I wanted the whole thick, crusty hump
of it laid out for vivisection.
Here is my body, eat.
And lots of red wine that always feels like it's
squeezing my bones with lava.
Here is my blood.
And then the bad news came.
Whoever listens to the good.
And before I answered, before the questions
and the arched eyebrow of my husband standing in the doorway
could fall into pity and helplessness, I thought, "Yes,
I'll make a soup tonight, a soup fit for the gods."