What It Takes to Stay Alive

Perfect recipes take time
to develop; often it is the work
of generations, like this
disease is of grandmothers, of
mothers and daughters who have
tested life and tasted what can
be bitter and what can be
sweet. At twenty-seven I began
to tinker with the recipe—
tested out the science of cooking
in the brain—and now I take
five pills at morning with water
and one pill at night swallowed
dry. I call this variation “What
It Takes to Stay Alive.”
Like how science and recipes
are peer-reviewed, we have
studied it: my doctors, my counselor
and me. We patiently test and taste
and tell ourselves that
with perhaps just another dash of
salt, my wounds will all heal.