THE KITCHEN

Although Grandpa McMullen, "Mac," the chief typographer

For the Des Moines Register and Tribune, was the

Breadwinner, Winifred, his wife, my grandmother,

Baked the bread -- her kitchen her life's work:

Clear Lake trout wrapped in the Register and Tribune;

Fresh crushed strawberry ice cream paddled

In a hand-turned ice-and-salt ice cream freezer;

Rump roast beef red in the core; mashed potato craters,

Runnells of beef gravy; currant jelly dripping -- drop,

Drop -- from a jelly bag. Was it Grandma, her plump breasts

Bound tight in gingham, dispensing round

Metaphors, food, like a first mother trimming the vines?

Innocent we ate, and we all helped her, later,

Wash up the pots and pans, the next day's bread

Rising in a tea-towel-covered crock, her body and her blood.

No wonder I cannot find her in that house.