Sourdough

“Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone,
it has to be made, like bread;
remade all the time, made new.”

― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

During the crisis,
everyone was starting starters;
There was yeast and panic
everywhere you looked, but
the kitchen was considered
a refuge. Perfect, golden loaves
emerged like forest mushrooms,
on wooden cutting boards,
on pristine marble counters,
on Grandma Ida’s fine china,
as an antidote,
as a domestic talisman.
While waiting for a cure,
we birthed the only perfection
within our grasp,
shaped with zeal
and breathless certainty,
dusted in a kind of snow.

Photo credit: Karen Andrews

From y Nada Mas: Poems for a Pandemic © Jon Obermeyer 2020