Recipe
Judith Taylor Graham
She sits under the kitchen lamp
Transcribing an earlier free hand to something cribbed now,
Slow and careful on clean lined paper.
The original, stained at the margins with tomato,
With eggwhite dried and cracked
Reflects the lamps illumination
Olive oil and specks of green (oregano or thyme)
Spatter thepage making the paper glow translucent parchment.
Her daughter wants this recipe at last
So she copies fatihfully
Ingredients and quantities proportions
Made to transform foodstuffs to a meal
She hopes her girl will scatter
Her own free hand at spooning,
Generous but thrifty and give this blue lined recipe
To friends
Hopes strangers taste,
And strangers, too, pass on.
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