and what is our national anthem if not an elegy?
we no longer carry cardamom to house parties, instead we gift
the front lawn with cloves, tumbleweeding from our hands. present
the open veins of sprig leaves as a peace treatise. we question
every invitation with invitation; no home is left unwelcome,
a stout of vanilla orchids dug into our creaking elbows. often we wonder
when dying became an option, we haven’t taken the time to understand
the weight of flour. when we were younger, our grandmothers would cup it
in their hands and it would always be enough; never a moment in rolling
out the dough would they interrogate the measurements; add more
milk to the bowl, watch the paste drown into a chalky soup. often we wonder
why dying is still an option. can we not acknowledge
in baking, there is always a lesson to be learned?
it’s easy to question the legitimacy
of an anthem, but aren’t all anthems just an elegy
and aren’t all elegy just recipes
left by our mother’s splintered wooden spoons
and aren’t all meals from their tired fingers
worth singing a splitting hymn for
we praise no god in this new land, but every mother’s kitchen
hum becomes the holiest worship. what else to bestow upon a troubled
people other than rum and curry, wings and henny, joy
and breathing; freedom singing from the skillet’s crisp
popping tongue;
jason b. crawford
jason b. crawford (they/them) was born in Washington DC and raised in Lansing, MI. Their debut collection, Year of the Unicorn Kidz, is out from Sundress Publications. They are currently an MFA in Poetry candidate at The New School.
