Loss

Three years ago
the restaurant closed
and ever since I’ve dreamed
about the green salsa, the pop
of acid and gentle burn
that builds and builds,
the verdant momentum.
I’ll never have this salsa
again, or know its secret,
one of so many trivial losses
of meaning unnoticed
in a rainfall of particulars:
recipes unremembered,
a small melody I’ve tried
to name for years, voices
and names and what it was
to be younger, the first taste
of tomatillo.