Opal Jewelry and Beckoning Bread by Lydia Renfro, WordCity Monthly Dec2020 Issue4
Opal Jewelry and Beckoning Bread For NanaShe was old, at least
As if that won’t be us tomorrow.
As if life continues on forever
and doesn’t snap shut—
a screen door while you’re still on the threshold.
She wasn’t in her right mind
As if the times she watered tulips
or mixed up paint in Styrofoam bowls
weren’t consequential, didn’t carry over with her
into days emptying out on yellowed linoleum.
She’s at Home now
As if I’m not remembering how I always felt
peaceful around her, the self-contained pool—
timidly gathering brown eggs beside her calm body.
As if I can just continue to go on without her
saying my name or giving me orange sherbet.
Did everybody decide to just forget about
her oval watch or that exquisite gap in her teeth
or especially those navy blue sneakers?
How can they calmly say
she’s not suffering anymore
when she will no longer print off the list of
family birthdays and tape it to the side of the fridge?
And now everyone will share stories of their special bonds
and it won’t matter that my birthday is one day before hers
because she would bake loaves for anyone who was hungry.
4 cups warm water, 2 packets of yeast, ½ cup of honey,
¼ cup of shortening,13 cups of flour, 4 tsp of salt,
proofed, rested, covered with a warm cloth,
baked until gold brown and thumping-hollow.
She would grease her hands and knead sweetened-dough
for all empty bellies, waiting each time for the second rise,
and it would do us well to remember that.
Maybe I’m panicking because people continue to have babies
and the replacements become more important than
the originals. I don’t understand how it’s decided
when we stop caring.
So what if those last days she was unreachable
in her inner world and ate only chocolate for dinner?
I dare to insist her pink Velcro slippers matter.
Let her benediction be golden rod in early evening
and a cherry Jollyrancher at the bottom of a purse.
And a Sunday full of humming.
Lydia Renfro holds an MFA from Adelphi University and is the recipient of the Donald Everett Axinn Award for Fiction. Her work has appeared in Litro U.S., Siblini Journal, The Blue Nib, Witches Mag, Miletus International Literature Magazine, The Merrimack Review, Isacoustic*, and others. She currently lives in Colorado, and is completing her first novel manuscript.
An Internet-based Word Arts Culture and Writers Center- Archiving theme-based Digital Poetry Collections , Profiling Iconic Poets, Exhibiting Legendary Writers and Hallowed Artists .The Center hosts and publishes Word City Monthly(an Internationally acclaimed , a multi-genre monthly, publishing flash fiction, poetry, short fiction, folktales, book reviews, interviews, literary arts news and global opportunities. Word City Monthly is headed and edited by the highly versatile and profoundly spirited storytelling revolutionary, Commonwealth Prize nominated Canadian Author Darcie Friesen Hossack This Center is founded on the values of promoting word culture , diversity of writing ideas, dialogue, literary arts exchange and cultural and racial tolerance among other matters. TIME OF POET REPUBLIC was founded by UNESCO-RILA Affiliate ARTIST. Freedom of Speech Fellow PEN-Zentrum Deutschland, 2019 African Fellow (ihraf.org/international-fellows). September 2020 University of Glasgow Creative Writing Programme Guest Poet/Discussant. Author of LETTER to the President(2019) and acclaimed Literary Arts Activism Projects Diplomatie, Mbizo CHIRASHA.
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One thought on “Opal Jewelry and Beckoning Bread by Lydia Renfro, WordCity Monthly Dec2020 Issue4”
Thanks for sharing this beautiful and lovely poem. Indeed a true feeling of love.
Thanks for sharing this beautiful and lovely poem. Indeed a true feeling of love.
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