2006-08-02
Love #3
A grandmother's love is like Tau Hway
jiggling in a bowl of Tau Hway Zui.
Specially made-to-order, eschewing all menus.
Not your usual way of eating it,
but familiar, nonetheless.
You turn up your nose at the old stained steel mug she brings it in,
defying all scientific rendering that has allowed us to call it "Stainless".
The curds are mushed and broken
and jut out like sore icebergs caught in a tenacious thick.
You know you like your Tau Hway in preserved smoothness, sheets of delicacy.
You spoon the white gruel slowly,
passing it through your conditioned, urban lips.
You can't decide if it's too sweet,
but you soon lose yourself to the flavour of time.
You think of the hands that have been gloved by the milk
wrinkled by hardwork, furrowed by water
Following the assured channel of repetition,
Ingredients measured with experience.
The hands that sit folded with certainty across you
Rise to fill your imagination.
Embarrassment would be yours, should the eyes of the external world fall upon your homely breakfast.
But within the thick walls of her browned love,
they paint comfort on the drowsy ones of your stomach.
The portions are always too big,
but never ever enough
for the grown-up scavenger that misses home once too often.
nothing ever happens at 9:01 p.m.