Another in Elizabeth Akin Stelling’s series of prose poems. Look for news about a book of these poems … soon!

#15
By Elizabeth Akin Stelling

Small brown hands began mixing flour and water for tortillas in an old wooden bowl as the woman explained in Spanglish to my mother, who was sharing too much information about my father, her hypertension, and swollen ankles. The old woman reached into a can and took out a pinch of salt, and sprinkled it over the mixture as if she never heard my mom.

I stared across at eye level to get a closer look at the stray flour that floated down from air and onto the counter. It smelled like the place my father had taken us last weekend, the whole in the wall, he called it. but outside, letters spelled cantina. We got sips of momma’s sangria and ate the bits of fruit she put on our napkins.

The red stained my dress. Sometimes momma and daddy would fight late at night and once I saw them wiping blood from her mouth. It had run down her chin and onto her pretty white gown she wore to bed. We only had one bedroom and they never seemed to sleep.

The woman smiled at me as I watched her roll out the dough. She pushed and pulled until it seemed hard like our yard ball under the tall pecan. Then she pulled off tiny pieces and gave me some to play with. I didn’t understand her, but she made the best soup with beans and onions. Momma learned to cook the food my father discovered while working with Mexicans on his latest job.

I roll out dough on my counter and each swoop back and forth recalls the taste of my past.