And it’s not what you believe it to be. It’s blue, but also innumerably green. Innumerable, also yellow. Purple. Of course it’s navy, black, cyan, royal and aqua, aquamarine, azure, baby blue, byzantine, celeste, cerulean, turquoise, denim, indigo, sapphire, but also teal, plus mint, kelly, olive, jade, army, artichoke—but colors can’t describe a thing. More importantly, it’s a mountain. It’s a field in wind, or a mass, so big, pointy or rounded like laundry, warm like laundry, the sound’s like an open hand to the cheek, or like broken glass, a pine cone crushing dry pasta, a splash/crash, sage. An adult head coming in and out of it, the largeness of the head against the innumerable hues, the shoulders, the neck praying. A crawl, a breast-stroke, it hides and recovers the ear, the nostrils, the lips gathering and then holding breath, the eyelids closed, the hands like glass dropped from the counter, cutting completely into skin, or some other material, a lace curtain, and in the vastness of it there’s this adult head, lapping up and down, in and out.

CABBAGE, THE HIGHEST ARCH

One head of cabbage, my grandmama says. She likes to tell me things. It is mostly about the people she despises, or about her mother. Sometimes it is about how to sauté the cabbage with bacon, green peppers, and onions. She tells me that she does not approve of a woman cooking only for herself, it’s selfish, she says, to cook only for oneself. My grandmama drags her feet on the ground. When she is in motion everyone knows it, the neighbors know it, she makes a sound like sandpaper. We sometimes call her Sandy, to reference this sound.

Sandy has the smoothest skin, and on her feet the highest arch. Pieces of bacon and the cabbage in oil, in regular olive oil. Slices of onion, a whole onion, the big green pepper. My grandmama has her tight gray curls, and the white curls, the bridge of her nose, an expansive nose, her skin the most comprehensive brown, a dark brown, hairless, her sloped shoulders.

My grandmama tells me made-up things—how she once drew the attention of the Isley Brothers, Ernie or Chris, Rudolph, Vernon, O’Kelley Jr., Ronald or Marvin, how their hair looked soft, and their chest hair looked soft. How they walked down a spiral staircase with a taller man of no relation, and how he towered over them all, beautiful. She teaches me with her arms how to sauté all together: the cabbage, shredded and cut in half and then thirds, the edges cut off, in the big frying pan and on the stove, salt, the course salt, pepper, hot pepper at the end, in small batches, the cabbage sticking to the big pan, loosened with vegetable stock, or water.

THE MISCONDUCT OF SAND, AND THE SEVEN