Book Details

Containment

In my mother’s kitchen, nothing was allowed
to remain in its original container. There were jars
for everything – cereal, rice, tea, three leftover
strawberries. If a yogurt was half-eaten, the other
half went into a jar,

so that each meal resulted in a continual reshuffling
of food into smaller and smaller vessels, a practice
learned from her mother, who was said to have run
a tight ship. Sometimes, she stored food in a plastic bag
she washed out and reused. The compartmentalization

of her kitchen mirrored the labyrinth order of her mind,
the files that, like the FBI, she kept for each grandchild—
report cards, love notes, term papers, and SAT scores;
the extensive dossier on politicians she considered bad
for the Jews; the looseleaf notebook of my poetry; the lists

she made when she learned a new word or when she
remembered a fact that had slipped away. My archivist,
my inspiration. As I sort through my refrigerator putting
food into smaller and smaller containers. I think of her.