she rose early to parse<\/p>\n
flour through a dented, aluminum<\/p>\n
sieve. Three eggs tapped &<\/p>\n
cracked against an unfaithful<\/p>\n
porcelain bowl.\u2013 Chipped; Whisking<\/p>\n
the batter with a hairpin wrist. It was always sulfur-<\/p>\n
yellow & forced into a bunt<\/p>\n
shape too early; Odd creators missing<\/p>\n
from where the air tried to escape\u2013<\/p>\n
she could never get it right &<\/p>\n
what could we say to her? Pulling the tin<\/p>\n
from the oven-, heavy, doughy,<\/p>\n
& the frosting she\u2019d whip into a grainy<\/p>\n
paste; spread too soon, thinning & dripping<\/p>\n
into a curdled puddle.<\/p>\n
I never saw her dip a finger deep<\/p>\n
& place it into the neglect<\/p>\n
of her mouth; Her hands<\/p>\n
forever running themselves clean along an apron.<\/p>\n
This is how she celebrated her birth: slicing &<\/p>\n
serving her children a thing she made<\/p>\n
also out of convention.<\/p>\n
A sterling knife reflecting the disaster<\/p>\n
in quick flashes as it divided<\/p>\n
our portions into massive, misshapen hunks.<\/p>\n
& she would watch our forks lift<\/p>\n
to our lips; Trembling, Mimicking<\/p>\n
our purse & swallow. Her empty mouth<\/p>\n
held by some interior gate that kept her<\/p>\n
wanting; The way a dog paws<\/p>\n
at a screen door, begging for\u2014still, I don\u2019t know what.<\/p>\n
she rose early to parse flour through a dented, aluminum sieve. Three eggs tapped & cracked against an unfaithful porcelain bowl.\u2013 Chipped; Whisking the batter with a hairpin wrist. It was always sulfur- yellow & forced into a bunt shape too early; Odd creators missing from where the air tried to escape\u2013 she could never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1425,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[54],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-3Et","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14041"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14041"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14246,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14041\/revisions\/14246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}