Читать книгу An Indiana Christmas - Bryan Furuness - Страница 16

MAKING PIEROGI ON CHRISTMAS EVE

Karen Kovacik

The dough is not turning out. It refuses

to stretch, sticks to the sides of the pink bowl.

You work in another half scoop of flour,

click your tongue, stamp your slippered foot.

And the flutter in my stomach quickens:

instinctive response to your anger, thrum

of guilt, my fault. In this room, once

dove gray, attic gold, brushed peach,

you presided in alligator flats,

though you could have been on stilts,

so tall you towered over us. You wanted

the gold-flecked linoleum to gleam,

the turquoise wool coat of your design

to disguise my sloping back, every plate

to be safe in its nesting place.

You are smaller now,

more comic, a banner of unbleached flour

on your belly pressed against the table edge

as you thump the rolling pin over the dough’s

thin skin. My own body feels bigger,

too big for the braided mat of this chair,

flushed with the insight that you have become

my serious gray-haired girl. How stubbornly

you hold your shoulders, your pastry wheel

flaying the flat expanse of dough into strips.

Flour on my fingers, I crimp your tiny pillows

of plum and cheese, watch them bob

and float in the salty water, and rescue them

again and again.