Vinegar
By Sarah Barber
That summer I got very thin
on my diet of he-loves-me-not:
kale, fried egg, a tomato melted
in butter. And when I was flat
enough, gin and the ring-ring-
ring of that unanswered phone.
Each week I bought a new bottle
of vinegar—which is delicious
slopped on hot white bread. Who
with a tongue hasn’t loved
some sweet slow rot. You catch
flies with it, too. Put a drop
in the base of a jam jar—it was plum,
I ate it straight off the spoon—
cover tight with plastic wrap,
with the tip of a knife make a hole
too small to get out. They drown
but who hasn’t needed to watch
some smaller thing suffer?
That summer I scrubbed and rinsed
with it, too. I had read somewhere
you can break open even a rock
if you pour enough vinegar on.
