Carlos Martin
I Did What a Child Does
After Li-Young Lee
So that she could take a job,
after my father left with the waitress,
my mother teaches me to cook us dinner.
1. Chop the onions finely,
they will muddle into the sauce.
The pressure cooker’s explosive
reputation terrifies me.
She teases, nothing but a rumor.
2. Bathe it in cold water.
3. The sound of steam is a warning.
I ask about my father.
The sound of steam is a warning.
Beware, a meal can become a curse tablet.
4. You must first fry and brown the beef in olive oil
to give it color.
She dances from stove to sink to steak,
she’s always dancing.
She dances like we’re not clinging to the
walls of that small townhouse kitchen,
the survivors of our shipwrecked family.
5. Take the beef out and fry the sofrito.
The frying onions excuse
the release of suppressed tears.
A meal can be a curse tablet.
We eat in silence.
My daughter giggles when I mimic the percussive pressure cooker.
shique-shique-shique-shique-shique-shique-shique
She repeats:
1. Simmer rice 15 minutes, steam rice 15 more.
I ask her how we chop the onions.
2. Chop them small, Papa.
My daughter Elena never met her namesake
Maria Elena Sanchez,
gone to glory before Elena was born.
She eats the stew we made,
her grandmother’s gift to us.
She laughs and she says,
Papa, you’re dancing.
