leave the heads on

At the liquor store today, I was overwhelmed by the unidentifiable food scents filling the air. I was hungry and it smelled so good, spices my tongue could taste. I asked the Asian woman behind the plexiglass what that smell was, what she was eating, that it smelled so good. She said that she had been eating shrimp. Shrimp with the heads on, she added. Here, they cook it without the heads, she said, but when you cook it with the head it tastes so much better. I left with my bottles of champagne but walked home with more questions, wondering if she ate it with the head on, what it tasted like, whether she made it herself or bought it, if the latter where I could purchase such delicious smelling food, if the former what spices she used, and the nature of home and its relation to food. Conversation is a bit awkward through the plexiglass of liquor stores. It was such a beautiful day to ponder these questions about the heads of shrimp as I walked home, bottles occasionally clinking together.