The Chipped Rim

I tried to make the soup at home.

I followed the recipe,

or what I remembered of it,

the way it tasted

at the deli counter,

the chipped bowl,

the worn spot where a thousand spoons

have scraped.

It was wrong.

Not the ingredients—

those were right.

The taste was wrong.

The texture was wrong.

The whole thing was wrong

in a way that meant

I wasn't eating soup,

I was eating loss,

I was eating the memory

of sitting at the counter,

I was eating the specific

brightness of that afternoon,

the specific loneliness,

the specific hunger

that only that place could fill.

I poured it down the sink.

The bowl I used

is in my cabinet now,

whole, unmarked,

nothing like the one

at the deli.

I won't go back.

Something changed there,

or I changed,

or the place changed,

or the soup changed,

or all of it did.

But the hunger

is still specific.

It's still looking

for that exact bowl,

that exact counter,

that exact taste

I can only eat

if I'm there,

and I'm not there,

and I won't go back,

and the hunger

stays.