Shopping List

Milk (remembering sneaking into the barn on my friend's family farm and the cows eyeing us with worry, as we scaled to the top to watch the lightning strike the hills beyond)

Bread (how lazy we were, on that first field trip ever to the factory where the Wonder Bread was made, the smell of dough and sweetness, and the sample bag of crust and inside devoured within minutes on the way home, each of us racing the other to the end)

Cheese (my great-grandmother, carefully and methodically slicing the block while her immigrant brogue danced in my ears of Ireland, of where we came from, the cheese lifted from plate to cracker, with tea cup, dancing, me listening but only later remembering)

Pasta (the lucky days of invitation to my friend's house on pasta night, such loud raucous passing of plates and bowls and silverware, the smell of the sauce from all-day cooking, a slow simmering and bread dipped into it, dripping red, absorbing time, barely whispering thanks before the meal is gone)