Stacy Braverman

FALL

Two ants trek across the dusty floor Wind chimes jostle on the porch And the windowscreens pulse with impending storm. In here, though, all is warm and right Bare feet and bread dough and the scrabble game You have laid out on our broad table. A precocious child with a virtuous name Sits chin propped in small hands to see you across the board And me, in the background, scrubbing out the fridge. You tuck your toeringed feet up under you And call me over to bemoan your fate, A long string of consonants and no relief in sight. That’s just how it feels when I try and talk to you A million words and none of them possible, A willing heart but just sawdust in my mouth. Thunder cracks around us now And we bracket the child, a symmetry of comfort, As we cluster at the window and watch all the birds fly off. This homestead kitchen feels like the world’s core, Its safest place, its beating heart. We could last a long time here, us two and the child. The kitchen stocked with sacks of beans, A world of spices, four dozen onions, and all the carrots you could dream of Frosted still with our sleepy valley’s soil and just yearning towards the stockpot. Ingredients and ovens, the means and the motive And we are full of imagination and the possessors of strong hands. A new world could be born here, this thunderstorm its creation myth With the potential of a single tile, i or u, A warm meal made from food we grew Or from the look you give me now, Smiling somewhere out the window above the child’s thoughtful gaze Arm draped round his shoulders to my waist A tableau I’d like to press against the already clearing sky.

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