Crisp as Childhood

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

The pan hisses as oil meets the salt-dried anchovies,

their edges curling like brittle leaves in heat,

their scent rising, thick as the tide on a noon-warmed shore.

The eggs follow, yolks breaking into the sizzle,

spreading gold through the pan, slipping into the cracks

where fish bones turn crisp, where hunger waits.

Tomatoes collapse in the heat, their skins splitting,

juice bleeding into the oil, into the salt,

into something sharp, something sweet, something old.

This is not just food. This is a small, bright miracle,

a childhood plated and steaming, a reunion of taste

first met when I was eight, when my grandmother stood

by the stove, her hands moving through the rhythm

of hunger and memory, stirring, waiting, knowing

just when to turn the anchovies before they burned.

She would crack eggs in a single motion, let the yolks

pool, let the tomatoes weep, let the house swell

with the scent of something so simple, so whole.

I sat at the kitchen table, feet not touching the floor,

watching the meal take shape, the air thick

with salt, with heat, with something I did not yet name.

Even now, when luncheon meat or pork adobo or fried chicken

sits on the table, I return to this dish—anchovies crisp

as childhood mornings, eggs soft as a voice calling me home.

The bright burst of tomato on my tongue, the salt

curling at the back of my throat, the warmth

of a past still alive in the oil-slicked pan.

I eat, and for a moment, I am back in that kitchen.

The scent of frying oil clings to my hands,

my grandmother hums under her breath,

the world is smaller, warmer, whole.

Each bite a step backward, into the quiet

of love, into a hunger that has never left.

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