Dish.

Dish


by james bezerra



I can’t ever remember if pancetta is a meat or a cheese.

If gorgonzola is a cheese or a pasta.

If rigatoni is a pasta or an actual Italian dish.

And I do not know if the dishes in my cabinet have differing names.

I imagine they must.

Some dishes, like people,

are flat, shallow, small.

Some dishes, like people, have depth and thickness

or are unreasonably heavy.

There are too many names of things in the world

to ever know them all.

Because there are, in the world, too many things.

Too many people too - all alive and living, noisy and rushing -

to ever learn their names.

So we do the best we can; say “tall man” or

“Chinese man” or “pretty girl”

or “woman crying in the park”.

These names the brain better remembers.

Don’t blame the brain

just because it can’t

consume all there is to know.

No one thing could ever hold

all there is to know.

The brain does its best though,

but

it is just an organ, same as any other;

your hands might remember a lover’s body. Your

Fingertips may remember the goose bumps

of her skin. Your lips

may remember her taste.

But you don’t ask or expect

your lips to bring her back or

your fingertips to remember her name.

So what if the brain doesn’t know why the woman in the park

cries that way? So what

if it doesn’t know how one

gets to be Chinese.

It remembers “dish” and sometimes that

is enough. Just

and only barely enough,

but enough.

 
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