The Widow in Winter

 

When companionship comes in the hum of the Frigidaire,

Sarah spills a mound of dough on a board

swathed in flour as fine as the frost

on winter windows waiting for mid-day sun.

That noonday will bloom over her backyard,

low in branches of the persimmon tree

where feeders hang like pendulums for chickadees.

 

Here the dough waits for her palms pushing

it into submission, her hands and the yielding dough

in an agreed upon attraction.  It wants to rise

slowly as an old hound, having curled within

its nest of a bed, yawns itself to life.

And the loaf she forms, it too knows

her longing for crusts and butter melting.

 

January 2019