To Rosemary

You look like nothing delicious. Look at basil, the soft rounded leaves, domed as if shaped over a small egg. With basil,how can we do anything but imagine the sauces, the sautes, the roasts?

You look like the pain I would feel in the desert, days into the heat and the water supply running low, a pain that grows in small spikes, almost sharp. 

Maybe it was your scent in the hot, dry wind that made someone say, “Yes.” I imagine first you seemed medicinal, the smell of clean and clearing. Indeed, mothers used to tuck rosemary in the beds of their children to get rid of bad dreams. Surely, she tucked some under her own.

You are the herb of memory, of remembrance, of honoring the dead. The tiny purple flowers speaking to the souls of the recently deceased as they roam and wait for peace. You are comfort.

Fresh from the garden, your leaves are sticky, as if they are trying to hold on to whatever is passing by: a bee, a breeze. Rinsed, your scent fills my hands and chopped, the scent fills the kitchen. Hot oil in the cast iron skillet. The sizzle when you hit the pan. You tremble in the heat.

I remember the graves I have visited.