The Flavor of This Specifically

The can was already in my hand

before I'd understood the reason why.

I stood there in the soup aisle, bland

fluorescent light, and did not try

to put it back. I know the kind —

the condensed one, the one you cut

with half a can of water, find

a pot, and stand there with it, shut

up in your own kitchen over the sink,

eating it before it cools,

not hungry, not not hungry. Think

of it as something the body pulls

up from the archive: *this is what

we do now.* Orange ring on the dish rack after.

Spoon in the sink. The burner's dot

of red still cooling. No disaster,

just the specific weight of this

specific evening. Something known

by taste and not by name. The hiss

the soup made in the pot. Alone

in the right way, the old way, the way

that's almost fine. Almost okay.