number 44

food & thought
He wanted to know how this chinese restaurant could serve the same rice on the same plates ordered from the same menu and have it taste... better... just better than the rest, and I thought of some possible reasons, but just kept chewing, smiling and enjoying my curried chicken and all the tiny vegetables like the mini corn on their mini cobbs -- loving it all except the five dime sized water chestnuts that I left in a pile and we talked about what seems important to us these days, my brother and me and we talked about the work we'd cracked open together this week and I was glad for the view of the street, and wasn't unhappy to see the lady that took our order again -- I like the way she smiles and how she talks and it was good and so much sweet tea to split my guts and across the table from me this man whose dream for work has been through so much fire and refinement and iterations in the last 10 years, but there we were, talking about ways it might happen, and we prayed, too.

Phoenixification
At the bottom of his sea --
his heart's mysterious trench,
unquenchable embers burn.