CATHERINE KYLE

Kitchen Scene

In the old brick museum, behind

a pane of glass, cookie cutters

sit still and silent. There are four

of them, cut in the shape of card suits:

diamond, spade, club, and heart.

Their ridged silver edges would have

made ruffled cookies, each the size

of your palm. I can almost see the

hand of the ghostly last user on the

knobbed green handles, like a shadow.

Most likely, they would have been

used by a woman, or women and

women before her. An heirloom

passed down by multiple hands,

landing here now, so quiet, so clean.

And I wonder, like the card suits

we draw from a deck, what fate

did these phantom bakers pull?

To the last cookie maker, was your

partner kind or cruel? What odds

did you stack yourself against?

Did you look down at someone,

brush flour from her cheek,

and say, Here, we make our own luck?

I wish for you sweetness, the softness

of batter, the grin as you lick the

wood spoon’s curve. I wish for you

warm dough, the snap of a fire, a cat

for your quilt as the snow drifts down.

I hope you drew all the luckiest hands,

that any who came in with ice on their boots

found it melted before your hearth’s heat.