When I am alone I want everything to smell of you,
Butter and flour and okra
Fried with cornmeal,
Tomatoes, those bitter fruits
Gone sweet all summer,

July crab apple pies with cinnamon.
Your thin fingers,
Covered in flour and butter
And sugar,
Pressed into the dough,
Pulled, pushed
The flour and butter,
Making it something new.

I stood beside you,
Your apron on
In the small
Green kitchen
Beside the gas stove where I learned
Butter and flour and cornmeal over a medium flame
Until the okra is soft
And sweats through.

In our hot summer kitchen,
My small fat hands in yours,
Followed,
Stirred and sprinkled.

You smelled of this, so, when I am alone,
I hold things close, close to my face, in the kitchen
Smelling the pots and pans. I warm butter in the night
And salt, to smell you.

I sink my hands deep into flour,
Deep into the flour to feel again, to feel
Again I am with you.