Making Luxury Out of Flat Soda

I learned to breathe in my grandmother’s kitchen
despite life sitting on my chest.
Scent of cast-iron skillet seasoned by sunrises
and ancestors’ touch. Gospels of sizzling grease
and bubbling greens my uncle called hallelujah and amen.
Wallpaper aged like the wrinkled faces of generations
sitting at her table, arguing over cards
and gossiping over cognac. Grandmommy’s kitchen,
where on shattered days, when the world was crumbling,
when she forged forward
with the pennies and dust America gave her,
I learned to fill my lungs with survival.
Grandmommy’s kitchen had soul, but I wished for luxury,
like my classmates’ kitchens, like sitcom kitchens,
like kitchens that fed kids not worried about light bills.
In the aisles of the unwanted, she bought soda gone stale:
labeled with a bargain’s grace, flat as the depleted smile
of penny-pinching resilience. But in her hands,
the deserted became an idea—a diamond for joy’s crown.
In the confines of her humble freezer
that soda surrendered to cold’s gentle grasp.
My maker of miracles—my alchemist—
transforming the unimpressive into glimmers,
gifting me something more than survival.
With a blender whirring a symphony of ingenuity,
flat soda became a slushie—a frost-kissed wonder.
Luxury coaxed from the discarded.
More than a frozen treat, she shared a lesson:
how to breathe in more life than you’ve been given.