Vinegar

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.