I resorted to hippie-ism and all that
morning I baked bread.
The dough puffed up like a big pliant sponge,
alive and rising in the warm kitchen sun.
I let my hands guide me through shaping loaves
then rolling out and up into crescents,
sprinkled and smeared with butter and
sugar and raisins, sliced thick
and laid loosely in buttered pans;
they baked to a worthy product,
doubled again in size and lightly browned.
When cooled, the glaze would be drizzled
into ribboned hieroglyphics, the DNA-looped
swirls of mother love.
Secret messages from ancient bakers
coded the delicate rolls.
The scent of their baking filled the house for
hours and hours. When he arrived, my little dog and I
cried; and he, happy to be so missed, commented
on how good it smelled. Both of us dismissed
the memories that might have haunted us, the times when
the dog did not do flips of joy, when
I had nothing beautiful I could do or say.