Understanding Risk Factors
So You Can Control Them

by Sue Blaustein

It’s eight below zero.
Stinging winds scour
the avenue, hounding me
into the vestibule.
In Lam’s Garden,
the north wall is all
window, yet today the sun –
the life-giving sun – acts
mean. Bright,
but eager to show us
where the glass
is greasy. To point
out scratches…why?

Must it blanch the orange scales
of blob-eyed fish
in their aquarium?
They swish their fins
so fitfully
when they circle
a sunken treasure chest,
and electric blue gravel
makes them look worse. But –
I’m here about food
safety, not the fish.

Mr. Nguyen deeply
wishes I wasn’t here,
and I do too. But thanks
to our jobs we’re helpless,
and I have fact sheets.
“Handwashing”
in Vietnamese.
And “FAT TOM”, which is
only in English.
Food-Acidity-Temperature
Time-Oxygen-Moisture
It’s the science behind
the rules (why
they’re reasonable).

             Suppose
you’re a pathogen,
well-fed in beef. Stored
in a working fridge,
it’s too cold for you
to multiply. All you
can do is hold out
for better times.
Now your pot’s on the
counter, warming.
But someone adds salt.
It robs you – poor cell – of

moisture! Now you’re surviving,
but far from thriving.
If the re-heat for lunch,
this frigid day, is done
correctly, when the pot
goes on the burner
you’re doomed. Weak from
salt-induced parching,
now you die more
quickly. It’s what
happens when we’re out
of optimum range.

Mr. Nguyen is exhausted
from my tales
of invisible events.
When I finally pause,
he asks: Did a Black lady call you?
Yesterday a lady said I touched
her food without gloves.
She cursed me in front of customers.
You can tell me what to do.
Please, you don’t have
to write it. I’m unmoved.
No, nobody called. This is routine.

I’m also spent. What a waste,
reviewing “FAT TOM”
in air icy with mistrust
and spite. There’s science behind
my orders. They’re fair. But I
think of a vintage book.
Exotic Aquarium Fishes covers
ABC’s – how to create
conditions where fish
can thrive. The epigraph
for Chapter One wasn’t meant
to be ironic, asserting

The best way
         to be free
of the law
         is to obey it.

Assert…assert…I
can’t help but think:
whoever wrote that
was white, like me.