Adriana (ah-dree-AH-nə): the difference between abundance and grace

A three-bedroom house on a quiet street, its uncreaking floors, unslammable doors. An immaculate kitchen with a plexiglass skylight. A linen closet that requires nothing. A sunlit porch shaded by a single tree, a tree heavy with tightly clustered fruit—the tender kamias, each recalling a swollen finger. A woman who picks the fruit, but does not eat, who mashes the fruit for its juice but does not drink. A woman who rubs, rubs, rubs the sour sap on stained bedclothes, rusty grills, dull knives. The fallen and bruised on the fragrant lawn and a woman who chooses and chooses what is worth saving. The sad harvest dried on the porch then gathered in the kitchen. The shriveled remains rinsed, crushed, buried in sugar, boiled—all that one manages to coax into syrup, the idea of sweetness, the sunlit purity of an empty hive. The pale amber jelly bottled by the woman who requires nothing, sitting on a shelf in the immaculate kitchen of a three-bedroom house on a quiet street.