Treasured in poverty,
grease-dark at the corners,
flour worked into the hinge,
its paint rubbed thin
by rough wet fingers
and decades of opening.
The index cards rise from it
like dry leaves,
each one carrying
a kitchen still breathing.
Butter has yellowed them.
Salt softened the ink.
A thumbprint holds its place
where something boiled over
but someone stopped it.
Recipes crossed a continent:
salmon loaf set firm in a pan,
cabbage rolls carried west from Ohio,
apple butter put up in jars.
Resist the temptation to toss it
as you clean out the cabinets
at what was your parents’ house.
There will come a day
when the cure for what hurts
is beef barley stew,
the steps surviving
in your grandmother’s perfect
slanting script.
Set it there
behind the flour,
behind the brown sugar,
where hands nearly reach
for what they cannot keep.