Poem: “Reunion”

We rolled out dough

on stale newsprint paper

water-hewn and weepy

from a heavy salt fog off the coastline

–

Moist foreheads and forearms stroking

forward, underarms sweating

sweet mint syrup, and our flesh

like a fresh butter

–

We laughed in the tart rhubarb,

the berries in their sun-cellared

nectar

–

In the kitchen, like a ship’s hold,

sits a small summer oven,

halos of flour and black stars of hopeful

flies arced our dizzy curls

–

We did not notice

the dark headlines we had worked into the pies

where the heft of the wooden pin

pressed our golden crusts

with wilting columns

–

When they had baked

we cooed and fanned

like fat doves on the lips

of the water-facing windows,

eating the daily news before it cooled

–

Brined in vinegar and honey,

a belly full of births and disasters

a tag sale, two married, one dead

a peppering of hurricanes out west

–

We talked a woman’s evening

fed on the making, the task, and the mending

of baking these sorrows into ourselves,

folding these bitter fruits

between our own red hands

–

And licking the juices that bled

and ran to gather

into a sudden wine.

“Reunion.” Copyright © by Caitlin Kenzie Scott. Reprinted with permission of the author.