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.