Controlled Rot

The glass is cold against my palm.

I cracked the lid to let the gas escape—

a sharp, wet hitch in the throat

of the kitchen’s afternoon.

Three weeks of salt and dark.

The radishes have surrendered their bite

to the cloudy, grayish sea.

One peppercorn floats like a dead eye,

suspended in the middle of a change

I forced it to make.

The smell is moving toward something old,

a sour logic that settles on the tongue.

It isn’t dying; it’s just

breaking down into something I can keep.