“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

Poetry: Kitchen Knife



 Blood
             runs
across the light oak table

   and

  drips

 garnet


spheres


                                                                     to the varnished floor.
                                                                            Terror is found in numbness of the
                                                                                                    body and clarity of the mind. 
                                                                                                                          He knows as he stares
                                                                                             at the senseless
                                                            wounds weeping red tears on his arm
                                                     Knife dangling from his pale fingers, the
beat of his madness pulsing just
Below the skin;
                                                                                                I    cant   feel
                                                                                                            I       cant       feel.     


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