pie dough

pie dough

as though it’s the only thing she knows

she goes hand over fist

rolling out pie dough and so

the one tsp salt

pinched between three

fingers and a thumb

the one sometimes two

fist grips of flour and then some

the water in the thick of it

cold as it goes

and then slow only so later

it groans a good groan: I’m glad

I’m in here you know

after all the precision

of lard

after it gives way to the blade and in

all that dry becomes another something

entirely: small balls peas bb’s birdshot buckshot wet cough a spot of blood a drop of ink just one

on the catalogue page

they’d been gazing at

when he went down

when he let go and kept letting go

for two weeks before Christmas

and all the time

the pie she’d been hiding a surprise

and so.  And so it goes its only her

and pie dough. 

It’s getting up early to light

the stove.  it’s rolling the round ball of it

the way for the rest of her life

she’ll roll under it with her wooden pin

she’ll feel the shock/surrender of it when it caves in

she’ll listen to the viscosity of it with her fingers and take it just to the edge

before even grease breaks down

under all that heat

and intention.

She’ll pile up a whole eight plus decades

of making pie

and every one of them will be

the morning he died

how in the light he moved into her

and under the flute

how he sealed it how she knew and kept it

to herself stiff how she said at 33

this will be my life now this:

an oven

a bit of salt

two fists and then some of flour

and from time to time I’ll be reminded

I was rich once fresh as butter

because that’s what he liked

it sliced nice he said

it melted it left

if you were careful

no trace

or stain