Sunday, February 15, 2009

kitchen language

iced-cherries in the cold, belgravia, dec. 23, 2008.

kitchen language

heard your voice again, babusya,
as i woke in winter lightlessness;
you crept like sticky apricot footsteps
on the cobbled linoleum, bare feet
slipping warm into the morning.

how i once grew in the thick stirrings
of your kasha accent, the butter-on-toast
of your kitchen language; it came through
the cracks in a krashanka, nourishing yolk
on hungry ears.

been three years now, but you are still
singing to me. i hear you move between
the shifting frequencies of memory,
trailing apron strings, your lilt still a morsel
of sweet almonds & milk –

do you remember the taste of it?
or is it something like the food we eat
in dreams?

but i cook now, baba. i roast beets & scoop
onions into the pan, stain my fingers rosy
& pinch the leaves of sour cabbage. i pile
the bowls high & swear psha krev when i
i slice my finger, sing

your songs to the girl with the accordion,
whisper them coyly to my lover’s ears –

i’ve set a place for you on the poppy-seed
dishes, & i can say these words back to you
now, scatter them like kernels of buckwheat
flung to the frost & the soft blue dirt
of the horizon:

i’ll bake them well into myself, drip
them like honeyed amber onto the plates of
others – alive in me so that i might still
feed you, living now in the whole
earth’s mouth.

5 comments:

Arinn said...

This is absolutely one of your best.

Jason Treit said...

Only one suggestion. The third-line simile is a bit crowded. You might trim it to just saying her sticky footsteps crept.

And I 2nd what Arinn said. Holy of holies.

Anonymous said...

thank you both very muchly!

i appreciate the suggestion too, 'tis helpful. i like knowing what people find awkward or off... i hear what you mean about that line -- i've tried saying it over a few times & it does get unwieldy. hmm.

sticky apricot footsteps crept
over cobbled linoleum...

'sticky footsteps crept' is more succinct, yes, but the apricot needs to be there. 'tis important.

Jason Treit said...

Footsteps crept apricot sticky?

MB said...

beautiful poetry, original work.