This incantation
of greens and grains,
rosy citrus in season
appeases with textures
and odors rising
from scrap paper.
Add the alchemists: butter,
flour – subtleties
of roux: scant ballast
against earth’s slack-jawed
hunger – splitting like
overleavened bread,
and the sea spills
from its immense bowl,
salting the land. What
can the hands do
but knead and blend.
The fingers themselves
marvel, and the tongue
in every living
language weeps.
–Barbara Sabol,
Original Ruse
(Accents Publishing)
Barbara Sabol’s poetry and prose has appeared in Public-Republic, Blood Lotus, Poets 350, the Tupelo Press Poetry Project,Tributaries, and on the Akron Art Museum’s website. She has an MFA from Spalding University. Barbara is a long-practicing speech therapist, living in northeastern Ohio with her partner and dogs.