Basmati Rice
Some things are too familiar, too kind, too simple; and
I can’t buy Basmati rice
anymore.
I walk down the aisle, clutching the red cart handle as if the wind is too strong.
The spaghetti passes by;
Pizza sauce hauled in from Brooklyn;
Noodles already tender and packaged for convenience;
And there she sits – spread like a couch cushion, even and plump,
Basmati rice.
Organic or smoked,
She has many options on her shelf.
Basmati rice used to live in our house.
She dropped, grain by grain, into the blue crock pot bi-weekly.
She slept with carrots and breasts of chicken.
Sometimes Basmati nestled near thighs and strands of zucchini.
She smiled at him and I when we checked her distended bellies.
She bloated and sang along
in the children’s bowls as they sang her
"Ten Speckled Frogs."
Basmati rice isn’t something I can put in my cart
Anymore.
C. Cimmone (she/her) is an author, editor, and comic from Texas. She’s alive and well on Twitter at @diefunnier.
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