Step/Daughters
They’re part of the dowry she brought: girls
who’s shoes glide on our shop floor
with its film of flour and
cornmeal. Fluttering in through the bell-
hung door, shedding book bags and boas,
polishing the movie dialogue in the sparkle
of nose studs. The line dance starts then,
if we’ve played the radio right. Stretching
and folding their limbs like we do
to the adolescent dough. Their gluten strong
and extensible, their wild yeast blessing Vesta’s
hearth. Mother in her apron keeps the
customers at bay, I turn up the dial. Now every loaf
is a model of their oven-sprung hearts: dodging pan
racks, vaulting bins, ducking under the diving peel
all to the beat of a baker’s lame. “First cut is
the deepest”, indeed. Virgins’ heel & toe have kicked this
place awake while scattered white tracks are already gone,
and out the door.