Toyo
BY ASA DRAKE
Early in the supply shortages, I began to make my own miso. I grew soybeans (I could not buy them), then aged them with salt and koji I ordered online because that was still cheaper than shipping cold storage food. After eleven months, the toyo, skimmed from the top, was a surprise byproduct. My loved ones point out that the sea is rising and old regimes have returned to power. It’s not an excuse anymore, to say the apocalypse moves slowly. When I came home from Quezon City, I had lost ten pounds. I took steroids to heal my ears, damaged from consistent flight. I experienced stress induced eczema. Skin blistered and peeled away from my hands and feet. My lover coddled me distinctly so nothing might press against the ears or brush my hands. At dinner, he separated tinik from meat to make a moderate offering by my rice. I was happy for a way to show that what I described as suffering, could be ocular suffering. In the mountains, at each curve in the road, there is someone with a flashlight. The work is self appointed, to direct drivers away from the precipice. They save us from the cliff and they shine their lanterns into our eyes. It is so difficult to write a poem about the ways people might find me credible and also admit to having toyo. When Dickinson asserts I measure every Grief I meet, she is also 33 and definitely has toyo, but she acknowledges the suffering of others. Because I’m in the middle of a city, I can grow heirloom without much Monsanto, so the miso I age in my grandfather’s crock is whole and worth the eleven months he lived in this country believing I would eat well, fill up on vegetables and become president. Being salty makes my ears feel better. Today, I told a friend in my kitchen that I had added two spoonfuls into her dish and she heard teaspoons. She worried about measurement and I worried I could not enunciate. Which is no big deal except when it is. I wanted to warn her about tinik but I didn’t want to say tinik and I didn’t want to translate bone to bone. I had already translated this dish into miso soup when it’s really a variation of sinigang. Everything about me is an affect of failed language. The metaphor is a sign I’m lonely. So you can hear me better.
