Fresh Mint Cloth by the Summer Door
My grandmother kept mint in a cracked clay pot on the kitchen sill. On the hottest afternoons she rubbed the leaves between her palms, lowered a cotton cloth into an enamel basin, and left it by the shaded back door.
The clay pot on the sill
The mint grew where morning light reached the window and the afternoon glare did not. My grandmother watered it with rice-rinsing water and pinched away the dry stems while waiting for vegetables to drain. The clay pot had a crack held together by wire, but it stayed on that sill every summer.
When the air in the courtyard stopped moving, she picked a few leaves and rubbed them once between her palms. The smell arrived before the basin did. She filled the enamel bowl, unfolded a clean cotton cloth, and set both on the cool patch of floor beside the back door.
A cloth handed across the doorway
I remember coming in with my shirt stuck to my back. My grandmother wrung the cloth over the basin and handed it to me. She touched the back of my neck with two fingers, then pointed to the chair. The cloth went across my forehead, neck, and wrists before she dropped it back into the water.
At another hour she used a warm towel over tired eyes. A bamboo wife belonged to the summer bed, and cotton quilts crossed the rail on a clear morning. None of those objects filled the whole room; each was placed where a hand or face would meet it.
The basin at dusk
By dusk the mint leaves had darkened. My grandmother poured the basin onto the plants by the step, rinsed the cloth, and clipped it to the line beside the kitchen towels.
The clay pot stayed on the sill. New leaves appeared above the wire-bound crack, ready for the next hot afternoon.