belleville

walking up rue de belleville at six thirty with everyone else. no one looks out not to walk into each other. in the window of a chinese grocery, two dozen shiny cooked geese hang, all tilted to one side, as though a wind has picked up and blown them all east.

i buy a liter of campari, black rice, wasabi, new soy sauce, asparagus, baking soda, and brown sugar. walnuts.

i spent four and a half hours working on my homework today. if i spend three times that, i might finish. tomorrow is full of plans, like the bastille market because i don't eat enough fruits and vegetables, and to the grand mosquée for tea and birdsongs, then hanna's for roast chicken and zucchini cakes.

mother calls, she and dad are eating blueberry pancakes in the sunny kitchen of my house, while the chickens cluck happily by the back door. i will never have a reason to go back to that house again.