Washington's Ovens, Adamses' Letters

There are stories in which the food is so here,

so immanent . . . like the favored dish

of the emperor Vitellius, the one he named

The Shield of Minerva, the Protectress of Rome, and which

"combined such delicacies as pheasant brains,

pike livers, peacock hearts, flamingo tongues,

and lamprey milt." Of other edibles

that strike one's mind with the shuddering thud

of paratroopers, I'd suggest the rare,

expensive coffee Kopi Luwak, "beans for which

are eaten by a certain kangaroolike Sumatran animal,"

excreted, and only then picked, washed, and processed.

Add to that a six-foot layer cake in the shape

of a catcher's mitt, at Rick's bar mitzvah. And yet

today, instead, it's the theoretical bread

of August 19, 1781 I'm fondest over:

laboring to con the British into believing American troops

were massing in the north (in fact, his strategy would lead them

south), George Washington ordered his corps of engineers "to set

foundations toward a major camp in New Jersey so authentic that

the ovens could bake thousands of loaves of bread."

A feast! - of air. A stone complexity-of air, of pure

potential, of the wonderful nothing- and anything-space

in which the UFOs cavort like larks; and AIDS

and cancer are cured; and the well-aimed, daily, acid words

and lavish satiations of my first marriage

continue, morph, and spawn. Of ancient Rome:

"The reign of Antoninus Pius was one so undisturbed,

it almost has no history." Of course it's just this well

of zero circumstance that's richest; and we see it

in the love (and the political collaboration) of John

and Abigail Adams: "We can only know what they probably said

to each other while together, from the letters they wrote

when apart." In one, she demanded I want some

sentimental effusions of the heart! It's this, exactly, on display

today in the corner booth: a couple over coffee- ordinary

and uncomplicated diner coffee- whispering extraordinary

things.

We can tell, by the eyes, by the way that they lean to the laws

of a private magnetism. We can tell, although we can't

hear a word. It's how we can triangulate an intimacy

from the Adamses' letters. It's almost as if

we're there as they lie down to share their sustenance.