This Is Just to Say

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

William Carlos Williams

***

In this case: red peppers. Hot. Brought a wide smile to the boy’s face. “Ah, these are the right kind, Madame,” he said. In a burst of enthusiasm, he added: “If you buy a kilo, I’ll chop, chop, chop, add onions and Maggi, cover with oil and we’ll have a supply for the year. But I’ll have to open all the windows because you will cry and your eyes will hurt for days after all the chopping.”

I said a kilo sounded a bit excessive. At any rate, he used half of one in preparing a chicken dish somewhere around eleven thirty PM on Wednesday and put the covered pan in the fridge.

But we’re not going back to the house, I said on Thursday, after our visit to the group home where he’ll spend his weekdays during the school year. We’re going straight to my friend’s house from where you’ll leave for a week by seaside while I mind the dogs, the house, and the characters lurking around in my evolving first draft.

My neighbors shelter one of his buddies. They have a key to my place. The boy asked his buddy to polish off the meal and added, with some regret, he would find it delicious indeed.

Along with the school supplies, perhaps I’ll buy three or four hundred grams of peppers for the school year’s chop-chop-chop supply of meal enhancer.