The Bookstore
Oven · Kerry Trautman
$10.00
12×10.5 inches printed on 100% recycled linen paper.
Signed limited edition of 10.
Set in Mrs. Eaves.
Archive-quality glassine envelope included.
Read excerpts
As globes of colored fluid in Galileo thermometers rise,
leaving only smallest digits dangling, as I
become, again, susceptible to dying frozen in
a skidded, snow-drifted car, my hands crave wooden
spoons and other instruments of creation tangled
in a kitchen drawer. My brain distracts itself
with doubling fractioned cups of cornmeal, multiplying
teaspoons of Tahitian vanilla. Icy winds are silenced by
the whirring Kitchenaid creaming shameful heaps
of butter and brown sugar. Skittering sleet can’t compete
with the love-song sizzle of floured cubes of beef that will,
in time, relent themselves to stew. As my oiled
fist sinks into risen dough, as the oven opens, wafting
heat over my face in a single gust of August,
as simmering minestrone slowly fogs the frozen
window, I know there is at least one way I can sustain us.
leaving only smallest digits dangling, as I
become, again, susceptible to dying frozen in
a skidded, snow-drifted car, my hands crave wooden
spoons and other instruments of creation tangled
in a kitchen drawer. My brain distracts itself
with doubling fractioned cups of cornmeal, multiplying
teaspoons of Tahitian vanilla. Icy winds are silenced by
the whirring Kitchenaid creaming shameful heaps
of butter and brown sugar. Skittering sleet can’t compete
with the love-song sizzle of floured cubes of beef that will,
in time, relent themselves to stew. As my oiled
fist sinks into risen dough, as the oven opens, wafting
heat over my face in a single gust of August,
as simmering minestrone slowly fogs the frozen
window, I know there is at least one way I can sustain us.
About the Author
Kerry Trautman’s work has appeared previously in Nixes Mate, as well as in various other journals and anthologies. Her poetry books are Things That Come in Boxes (King Craft Press 2012,) To Have Hoped (Finishing Line Press 2015,) Artifacts (NightBallet Press 2017,) To be Nonchalantly Alive (Kelsay Books 2020,) and Marilyn: Self-Portrait, Oil on Canvas (Gutter Snob Books 2022.) Her next book is forthcoming from Roadside Press.
