Chopsticks, ultimately, with or without a piano

the repeated but unreal seasons of pork chops with browned potatoes, peas, and Jell-O salad, the next night’s meatloaf with Spanish rice and green beans followed by fish sticks with scalloped potatoes and corn et cetera, always the same combinations back then, even Chinese would intimidate in dim rooms some at the edge of town on a Sunday night away from campus in the galleys of perdition, as if soy sauce would fix anything ketchup wouldn’t