The Daily Report

I don't have the language for this.
To bridge this distance;
instead, there's the usual inventory-
Things I did today.
Things you did today.

I want to say:
Today I finished a book,
and as I re-shelved it,
the thought came,
unbidden, like the sun:

I want to eat nothing but words
swallowing entire libraries
of them whole
nothing but that
for a year or a decade
or the rest of my life.

Instead, I tell you
about the price of daal
and tell you to stop
making excuses for your
lack of restraint
when it comes to carbohydrates
my voice self righteous
and unforgiving
as only a daughter's can be.


I don't want this kind
of inventory:
let us instead count
my life in teaspoonfuls
as the poet so cannily advises
and because if there's anything
I've inherited from you,
it's the full appreciation
of the word hesitant
today: shallots crackle rose
and pepper blooms on my lips
like a bruise, sharp, purple.