I shave flour level
With a flat butter knife,
Drop of water on my wrist.
Knead to elastic and satin,
Rest dough in a quiet place
Safe from the draft of the fan.
August, and tourists In Death Valley
Are asked to stop trying to fry eggs
On the sidewalk.
Here sword ferns guard a store of spring,
Stay green into fall, torpor of die-back
Rosehips shaping days.
Yeast proves a living organism.
If too much flour, dough thirsts.
If too little, clings to hands
Like the longing to hold the dead.
And punched down, rises again.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 26, Issue 3.
Carmen Germain is pleased to be a previous contributor to Cider Press Review. A painter as well as a poet, she is the author of These Things I Will Take with Me (Cherry Grove), and The Old Refusals (MoonPath Press). Her ink drawing Woman as Dance, too is forthcoming in Kansas City Voices, and her painting Rose Chaos will be published in a future issue of Oyster River. She lives on the Olympic peninsula of Washington State.
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