HAND-TO-MOUTH
Elisavietta Ritchie
Yes, that's how I live
in the literal sense
now you're away.
I hang out in twenty-four-hour
restaurants, the kind
with pie a`la mode,
two refills of coffee free,
the radio always on.
I space out my visits
and always pay for my tea.
When the owner is out
the waitress brings soup.
Crackers and water come with.
And they have vinyl banquettes.
One morning the waitress
insisted I try a bite
from her steaming pan
of fresh-baked liver
sprinkled with sesame seeds.
I'm still vegetarian, darling,
but never, oh never, have I
tasted anything quite so good
as that liver with sesame seeds...
I almost asked for the recipe.
But who knows how long
I'll be out sampling
the tiny seven-grain cubes
on the Bakery counter,
hotdog slivers in barbecue sauce
the supermarket's promoting,
the new labels of punch
doled into thimble-sized cups...
I market-test everything.
I buy just enough packets of chips
or from the Bargain Cart
spotted apples and rotten pears --
Fruit tastes better ripe, I tell
the well-coiffed cashier who watches
I don't run off with the escarole,
yellow peppers, ruby radicchio.
I skip the marked-down potatoes:
nowadays I don't cook.
Hairy carrots, squidgy zucchini,
I scrape with your Swiss army knife
and scrub with snow in the park.
Squirrels leap through the drifts
to eat from my table.
Some days the sun's out,
dances on patches of ice.
I must watch my step
on the unshovelled walks,
but how you and I would skate
on the frozen pool. They've shut
off the fountain for winter.
Some days I go to the library
though my eyes can no longer spell,
or I take a subway -- how many
invisible miles, peculiar people...
In the bus station one night
I found myself curled around
by a girl in her twenties,
also come in from the snow,
each of us wrapped
in our separate coats
pillowing on each other.
Sometimes I pass her now
on the avenue: We don't speak,
though our eyes for an instant meet.
Her fortune seems to have changed,
or she's dressed for a better role:
spike-heeled boots, and a fur.
Even at 20 below I still wear
my tweed coat, prudent galoshes,
the red dress you bought me,
my velvet hat with the veil.
Once a week I go home to check
if there's mail left outside,
but never go in. The day you
departed, I stopped the papers.
But I keep up with the news --
classifieds left on a bench,
stock market reports jut from a bin --
yes, you're doing all right --
I read whatever cover-to-cover.
What luck, today's horoscope!
My stars predict dining out,
a new romance in the offing
or else an old one resumes.
I await more precise information,
and perhaps a postcard.
