Carrie Etter
The Receipts
oh and again with the receipts marjoram mango cauliflower totted up
with prices, because everything, everything, costs but I prefer not to
calculate #metoo in financial terms and the receipts suggest recipes—
surely there’s a curry here? one by one each taste each sensory memory
the office accountant’s hands on my I first tasted curry in Los Angeles
discovered bliss in coconut milk I was so poor I recorded each expense
somebody else must have who bought me the Thai curry I was down
to 32 cents one dinnertime bought two cobs of corn the poverty
of youth, of beginnings reckoning not yet even a word in my head