Carolyn Forché: Online Poems

The Morning Baking

Grandma, come back, I forgot
How much lard for these rolls 

Think you can put yourself in the ground
Like plain potatoes and grow in Ohio?
I am damn sick of getting fat like you 

Think you can lie through your Slovak?
Tell filthy stories about the blood sausage?
Pish-pish nights at the virgin in Detroit? 

I blame your raising me up for my Slav tongue
You beat me up out back, taught me to dance 

I'll tell you I don't remember any kind of bread
Your wavy loaves of flesh
Stink through my sleep
The stars on your silk robes 

But I'm glad I'll look when I'm old
Like a gypsy dusha hauling milk 

Copyright © 1976 Carolyn Forché. All Rights Reserved. Online Source

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Poem For Maya

Dipping our bread in oil tins
we talked of morning peeling
open our rooms to a moment
of almonds, olives and wind
when we did not yet know what we were.
The days in Mallorca were alike:
footprints down goat-paths
from the beds we had left,
at night the stars locked to darkness.
At that time we were learning
to dance, take our clothes
in our fingers and open
ourselves to their hands.
The veranera was with us.
For a month the almond trees bloomed,
their droppings the delicate silks
we removed when each time a touch
took us closer to the window where
we whispered yes, there on the intricate
balconies of breath, overlooking
the rest of our lives. 

© 1981 Carolyn Forché. All Rights Reserved. from The Country Between Us. Online Source.

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