Although Gloria Steinem Would Surely Not Approve

When lines come clean to me,

Clear-eyed and whole,

Confessing prophecies and secrets I hadn’t

Known that I knew, and I let them go

To rinse another diaper and hang up the rest,

And make the bread –

Earthen warmth rising to the roof,

Crisp sunflower seeds and brown wheat

Held together by water and salt,

And yeast like the kingdom of heaven itself,

Anointed in butter and baked while I fold –

Do the untold stories drift away, wistful,

Like strangers at the final recital

Of a choir in which they once bandied about bass notes,

Trading cough drops and hymnals –

Too long ago now, and now nobody knows them,

And they quietly slip

From the church, unmissed?

Or is this

A new manuscript?

Families have stomachs and souls to be fed.

Meter: I sway my daughter to sleep.

Linens are lines;

Clean dishes rhyme;

Along with the plot, the gravy thickens;

I write four stanzas of rosemary chicken;

A poem may be eaten as well as read.