Where the Cans Are

Alone and hungry left leg aches like a broken peg in the mugginess of its left slipper. Not a good day for fixing anything but the sealed and over salted, the quickly warmed and spooned that can be mixed into a taste-less medley with other sundry comestibles. The pantry, (a recessed place with shelf-space), is a dimly lit store for long kept canned products, a once carelessly gathered and undated harvest,, a compulsive cartload that should never have been bought opened, and cooked in any company but strictly my own. In that larder molders a canned fodder; here anemic asparagus stalks wrapped in tin are jammed together with diced jalapenos, or glossily illustrated kidney beans. Tomato and noodle soups are haphazardly piled atop of various loosely defined stewed meat offerings, including canned Spam naturally. After the so-called cooking (more a revealing of a much mushed-up mixture of misnamed contents), I sit down with the steaming plate allowing the metallic aroma to entice peckish yet suspicious taste buds. Fed now with the quickly chewed-over I’m both glad and grateful that this ten minute feast can be wolfed down in so much less time.