photo: ralph murre
Father
Writes to Mother from California
by Jackie Langetieg
I remember Grandmother’s
voice
and crickets clicking
behind the radiator,
feasting on dust from
fresh baked bread
while I lay on the window
seat
watching her polish the
mound of dough
pushing and turning it on
its powdery board.
Looking over at me, she
dropped
a small plastic doll into
the mix
folded and smoothed it
into a ball
while she told me of
earthquakes
in San Francisco
and how the ground would
open
like cut dough,
then fold over a small
girl and her mother
rolling, kneading and
sealing them
into the bread of the
earth, sent to the oven to bake,
disappearing beneath the
cooling crust.
~ first published by the Wisconsin Academy
