“Things Every Southern Woman Should Know How to Make”

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Alice clicked on the headline, mildly curious about what yet another stranger thought should be in her kitchen repertoire. Pictures of China plates mounded with crispy fried chicken, greens, cobbler, and a pile of biscuits a mile high flooded the screen, all set off with a pitcher of sweet tea beaded with condensation. The table was set; an apron draped off to the side next to a box labeled “Gramma’s Recipes” in fine calligraphy. She closed the browser and put away her tablet. She was born a Georgia peach, but she couldn’t make a cobbler to save her life. Did that mean she wasn’t southern? Or maybe just not “Southern.” For Alice, there was no recipe box full of family traditions. Her younger years were filled with rental homes in different states and her father’s voice coaxing her toward a text book rather than a cookbook. Metalworking and fabrication held more interest than learning to flambé or sauté. Did it make her less of a woman that her cooking skills consisted of fresh salads
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Poetry: Anticipation

Thunder rumbles, sends a tingle along nerves as the charcoal-smeared sky promises action.
Blue-white voltage imprints the retina, veining the vision with darkness.

I wait, body vibrating with every ominous peal, for my heartbeat to match the staccato rhythm of the lightning,
for the trees to bend in the gale, bowing under its might like saplings,
wind howling through the battered leaves like the sound of lost souls.

I remember to breathe, the scent on the air sharp, fresh

the rain is coming.

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