I rummage through a box of Kirbys, picking
out the smallest ones to make pickles. The dust
is still on them, their collective smell rising
slight and sweet as I tumble them back and forth
like a stone-polishing machine on the boardwalk.
I remember two weeks ago, our last night
in Paris: my husband, speaking no French
but managing to express such enthusiasm
for the haricots verts the woman behind the wine
bar has brought out in a carton from the kitchen
to snap in between customers, that she shrugs
and plops down a handful in front of us
on the wooden bar, gesturing to him—let’s
see what you can do. After a few minutes
she says to me, “Il est vite,” and pours
us each another glass of grand reserve madiran,
the gesture making us giddier than the wine.
When I bring my overloaded sack up to weigh,
the young South American worker wants
to know what I will do with nine pounds
of cucumbers. “Pickles,” I say. He jokes, “Please,
bring some here.” In the spring, he tells me, he bought seeds
to grow the dill blossoms you need to make pickles
but cannot buy in any store, and then had no
time to plant them. “It’s strange. I work on a farm.
But I had no time . . .” “Yes,” I reply, “It’s ironic.”
He looks pleased. “Ironic, yes. I knew what
it meant, but not how to pronounce it.” As I
pay him, and he searches the deep pockets
of his canvas apron for change, I imagine
him repeating the story to another
customer, testing the word—shining it.