After the Fire
       

You go to the table & instead of finding a sacrificial body you get literal bread
your neighbor made with sourdough starter cultivated in a basement by her
friend. You get green peppers stuffed with soufflé-like matter, coriander
essence—the spice once spread in Egyptian graves to aid eternal love's quest.
One couple gives enough mujaddara to survive a locust plague—lentils, rice,
caramelized onions, why is what's simple so good? You go to the table expecting
blood, after the fire, & get chocolate, champagne, oranges.

The health benefits of eating this way are miraculous. Even the Kitab al-Tabikh
says so. Even the Yinshan Zhengyao. Your family sleeps, wakes, & where grief
should tincture morning is lime or kalonji seed. What will arrive today from
the Yucatán but a Mayan woman speaking the lost language you fathom as if no
calendar or government passed between you. "What's this?" Tamales. No cross
needs carried, here in her husk, no volcano to dive back into. Is it this tang
that vanishes the oeuvre of apocalypses? Or being so loved.

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Copyright © 2021 Jane Springer All rights reserved
from The Southern Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission