In that dark kitchen, cooling
in the December night, we stirred
water into flour, making paste
to hold my school project…
construction paper states,
green Tennessee, Rhode Island red,
brown Iowa and California
orange, tight to the U.S. map.
We only heated the kitchen
when needed. No wasting wood
for warmth—that’s what sweaters
were for. Mornings, when the coffee
pot warbled, biscuits browned
and oatmeal sputtered,
frost drew pictures
on the window as if the world
outside was white. Steam
smoked a different landscape,
one I painted with my breath,
traced stick figures, wrote my name.

In the sitting room,
the belly of the stove was fat
with blue coals, bright
Jack-o-lantern smile.

Outside
the cold moon cast down
a backward eye, sailed off
somewhere warmer. After
it had silhouetted
the barn, road and hill,
fence and stables
in silver and black.

After pasting
we rubbed
waxed paper across
the Sunday funnies
to make our own, stacked
Lincoln Logs a foot high, played Rook,
Old Maid, Go Fish. The world|
was at war Edward R. Murrow said,
but I felt warm with wood
cut from trees I knew,
ham from hogs we grew, and eggs
our chickens laid round in nests
while rain on the tin roof
didn’t scare
us at all.

From Tea and Other Assorted Poems (Main Street Rag, 2010).
Used here with permission.