The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Gastromythology by Jessica Manack

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Gastromythology

The day after you leave, I realize that I am starving, and that I am in
the place for it. Stopping at each stand on the street, I buy cones of
almonds saltier than the sea, steal enough hazelnut paste to last a
week, hide bananas like disease up my shirtsleeves. I cry in cafeterias,
clean cups with my tongue, trying each tea—Black Forest, Dreams of
Rilke—without luck. None of these are what my mouth wants to be
full of. I’m displaced: a flopping fish, dismembered hand, in a land
where words lay like traps in the way. The people here greet friends
with Hey, Uncle. They say: I have the head of three in the afternoon and
Your girlfriend is gorgeous; she is like a train. The last time you went
away was the day I learned the vigor of cheese, all kinds. The sly,
pillow-softs, the ink-blue clots, the ones with waxy rinds: I made
them mine, storing in oil for next time what I didn’t eat. Now, I hang
out beside the bakery, drinking yogurt, grinding fried corn between
my teeth, until fresh bread drops down the chute into the window. I
eat it as I walk. It lasts a block. At the candy stand by my house, the
old man studies me as though I am a lush, tired eyes pink as
Valentines. “For the kids,” I lie. You’re always on the go. You don’t
send notes, or cards, or steaks at Christmastime. I try to gild
goodbyes, frost them pink and sweet like cakes, but I can’t hide my
eyes. I seek you in every pie. I eat the promises you break with ham
on rye. Flailing, I try to write you, but “You’re so shellfish!” is all I
manage. I eat my dinners in bars, anonymous. It feels safe. Tonight,
the rotund widow brings plate after plate—fried bread soup,
cauliflower drowned in mayonnaise, eggs splayed atop mountains of
squash and rice, a plateful of red tuna packed in oil, veins black, an
ore. Hefting her rolls while fetching me more, ignorant of my binges,
she encourages me to eat. “The eyes of the fat are brilliant,” she
laughs. “The eyes of the thin, they pop out like frozen fish.” The light
falling away’s all that punctuates my days. My feeding’s never
complete. I pry orange blossoms from the trees lining the streets,
shower my mouth with flowers tasty as phone books. Nothing is as
filling as it looks. Even the fruits on the trees are useless, used by
junkies, they say, to sterilize needles—a few acidic pricks to safety. I
roll one in my hand, marvel at its slick citrus skin, teeth mossy, hands
soiled and clammed. It doesn’t let on, but I know we’re both damned,
we’re both shoved, bodies tested and bruised, flesh shot through with
poison mistaken for love.

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