top of page
  • Writer's pictureMarías at Sampaguitas

Poetry by C. Cimmone

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. 

109 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All
bottom of page