first through the ribbon

when upon grasping in the fridge
for a bottle of hot sauce
amidst the myriad of styles
collected for the taste,
her/his hand grasped hold of a
teriyaki hot sauce,
something of which s/he him/herself
thought that s/he’d created
one early eve,
upon returning from work
with a hungry stomach &
nothing but frozen potatoes to
microwave & just a little butter
to be had---
whence administering the cayenne
sauce, of which Frank’s was all
that roamed free in the vacant
box of ice,
s/he’d chosen to mix it with the soy sauce
left over from an attempt at a
Schezwan dish a few nights earlier &
in retrospect, the taste was
something that s/he swore s/he’d repeat,
given the right circumstances &
the right desire.

when s/he was younger &
tinkering in her/his dad’s garage, s/he
nailed two leather straps to two corresponding
planks of wood, then
slipping her booted feet in,
s/he got atop a snow hill & slid down
with her/his weight a few feet,
before falling face down in the snow
that had not yet really packed in &
alas,
s/he didn’t let the light bulb glow further,
instead, discovering with the rest of us later
that this invention would come to be known as
the “snowboard” &
that “snowboarding” would become a zillion dollar
industry---
so,
one can imagine that when s/he saw that
some company who makes hot sauces,
had already put two & two together,
mixing soy sauce with a cayenne based sauce,
s/he was quite dissatisfied to say the least &
after unscrewing the cap, licking the top to check
the taste,
the anger built up inside &
s/he him/herself felt that s/he was one step away
from smashing the bottle on the kitchen floor
in a fit of rage,
because s/he’d have to go on working the rest of
his/her life,
when joe/jen schmo would get to live out
the rest of their lives
sipping Mai Tais, greased up in coconut oil on
some beach---
but then that light bulb did kick in,
if not better late than never
&
s/he did not smash the bottle,
because after all,
it was goddamned tasty.