Milk Shakes in the Sky
Ben and Jerry's delivered by air? I'm moving to North Carolina
Watching the hands of my son
kneading challah dough
on the maple cutting board
in my kitchen, a memory
rises of my mother
bending over our kitchen table
in Flatbush, pressing, stretching,
folding flour, water, eggs
into a living elastic.
Sometimes in my dreams, Mom
appears, whispers of her mother
in her kitchen in Zurawno
in the pre-dawn dark,
by the light of the kerosene
lamp, pulling and pushing
the yeasty challah dough
until my son covers it
with a clean white cloth
and leaves it in the warm
electric oven to rise.
by Joan Seliger Sidney
I even had a batch of bread—not challah though— rising when I saw this. From this morning's Writer's Almanac