Yesterday I sprinkled some sliced almonds into a small pan and turned the flame on low. I stood beside the stove watching over the pan and occasionally flipping the almonds so that they would brown evenly and not burn. When they were dark golden I shook a little sugar over them and stirred until they were caramelized. Then I turned the almonds out onto a plate to cool and took the pan over to the sink. The sink is a strange, cheap, plasticky thing, scarred from hot pans, so I held the pan up to the faucet and ran water in it to cool it down first. The water hit the pan and steam billowed up into my face. Suddenly I was breathing in vaporized sugar – I could feel it in my lungs and taste it as it went down. It was the most amazing sensation. I stood there by the sink and thought, All these years I’ve been alive and this has never once happened to me before. Then I thought of this poem, which I have secretly treasured ever since I first read it because I love how words, if you toss them around in your mind and on your tongue, turn surprising and magical in that same alchemical way.
Errata
– Kevin Young
Baby, give me just
one more hiss
We must lake it fast
morever
I want to cold you
in my harms
& never get lo
I live you so much
it perts!
Baby, jive me gust
one more bliss
Whisper your
neat nothings in my near
Can we hock each other
one tore mime?
All light wrong?
Baby give me just
one more briss
My won & homely
You wake me meek
in the needs
Mill you larry me?
Baby, hive me just
one more guess
With this sing
I’ll thee shed
Alison McGhee 