markbousfield

CUCINA CONTADINA

The young bride's lips hunch and curve
tears into the glass bowl memorial,

dead spouses
craving one last brush of the cheek,
embraces that make the day longer and the half-life shorter.

Come day,
come the peace of peals aloud,

manila pages scented
by bananas left out in the sun too long,
the charcoaled wood of the picnic bench
supping grazed lichen fallen from fell trees,
the city,
moribund and askance,

the heathers of cloud fleeting in the day haze,
old houses and old wives greyed and happy,
catching rabbits on the heath for a long cooked stew,
ox stock and pommes de terre,

baskets of clover and parcels of rogue garlic
hewn from rose petaled fields,
heaving under the rapeseed bloom
boons of wildflower syrup and elderberry puree harvest,

maybe for after the wake some cool schnapps
and loose leaves to be carved into dinner sometime later this week,
if that ever comes for us.

Hazelground coffee desolute and fragrant in the morning belltide,
perfumed milk savoys headily over the lip of a long cherished mug
lime green and floral in the finest of porcelain.

Tending heavy heads of hops
grown deep in furrowed Scottish soil we choir,
geometrically sublime and saline,
just like the handshake of a Christian.