CUCUMBERS

I.

The house into which I just moved smells

like elderly women and cats and dust.

II.

I have traveled a great distance from home

to take classes with adults

who just recently learned

that pickles are cucumbers first.

In the words of my grandmother, some people’s children.

III.

During a recent bout of homesickness

I made myself a peanut butter and banana sandwich,

not because I ate them growing up,

but because my mother once told me she ate them growing up.

IV.

I am probably allergic to elderly women.

Or elderly cats.

Or dusty women.

V.

Once when my mother was a teenager

she sunburned so badly while roughing

a field that her mother told her to soak

in the canal without any clothes and to

bathe in vinegar and salts. My aunt,

who was twelve, approached the canal

pretending to bring my mother a towel.

She placed the towel a small distance

from the canal so that my mother would

have to leave the water and walk, naked.

When Mother was between the canal and

the towel, her sister unveiled a camera

and photographed her pink nudity.

VI.

My grandmother used to slice cucumbers

and tomatoes and serve them salted and soaked

in vinegar to accent her dense meat loaf.

At her house on the farm, I would play

among the dusty cornrows with her cats

until she called me in.

VII.

As I leave the house

for the backyard, I unlock the door behind me.

For sun-browned skin, I am wearing nothing

but boxers and sandals.

My landlord never mentioned the door locks on its own.

VIII.

After eating my sandwich

I remember that it wasn’t peanut butter with bananas—

it was peanut butter with pickles.