Ordinary Things

Every moment is a poem if you hold it right.

—Lauren Zuniga

I'm standing in the grocery aisle holding a jar    of bargain brand roasted garlic tomato sauce.

Shamed, of course, claiming I cook, despite rarely    making my own sauce fresh anymore,

merely tinkering with bland premade & packaged    goods I find at discount. Then there's the discount,

of course, this new life differing from previous ones    overspending on organics at local health food

markets, & who was I then? Half-housewife, half-    invested in mending a marriage with agenda foods?

The jar almost turns itself in my hand, the habitual scan    of ingredients: no added sugars, no animal products.

I've never really concerned myself with preservatives.    & then I think, perhaps that is why, in this new life,

I'm not yet pregnant but, of course, that's surely got    its own sordid causes, not the least of which being 40

& hard-lived. Everything is a guess, even this sauce.    I put the jar in the basket & head for the counter,

convinced of my failures. I return to the apartment, find    my new husband standing at the window where he

holds me, groceries still weighing heavy in my hand,    & tells me he loves me more. This is a lasting game,

he loves me more, I him. I set the sauce on the stove    to simmer, load it with my own selection of spices,

extra garlic. Serve him a hot plate of pasta he doesn't    necessarily want, kiss him when he tells me it's perfect.