-many Milk- | Syrup

It begins not with a crackle, but a sigh. The refrigerator’s amber light hums as the glass bottle comes out, sweating constellations onto the counter. Many milk. Not a single, lonely carton, but a battalion: whole milk, thick as poetry; oat milk, beige and patient; a splash of condensed milk from a tin with a jagged lid; and somewhere, hiding in the back, the ghost of powdered milk your grandmother swore by.

Then, the syrup. Not maple—too proud, too woody. This is golden syrup , or maybe a dark molasses that remembers the cane fields. Or better yet: a fruit syrup, boysenberry or blackcurrant, the color of a bruise at sunset. It falls from a spoon in a single, viscous rope. It does not mix. It settles . Syrup -Many Milk-

They are poured not into a cup, but into a bowl wide as a harvest moon. It begins not with a crackle, but a sigh