Bread Pudding

Silent house, oven on, 350 degrees Fahrenheit. 

 

I would normally be baking the bread pudding with Rose. Rose is at work, their last day of work, and it is almost Christmas. It’s not near enough to the holiday to bake the gingerbread cookies yet, but near enough to want something special. Too much bread in the breadbox is reason enough to make something new, and time is running out.

 

Pandemic skills. We’ve been baking more, Rose and me. It’s a surprise pleasure to be able to cook for entertainment, a surprise to me anyway. Many cannot. Socially distanced desperation snakes its way through parking lots. A pittance of canned goods at the end, to feed a family for another week. It is a marvel to me how we have escaped that fate, at least for now.

 

Years ago, just a few years, really, I baked this bread pudding recipe for about the first time, and brought it to Mom. She thrilled to it in a way I could not have predicted. There, in her standardized assisted living apartment, I had stumbled into a tripwire of some childhood memory she had never shared with me. Likely something that didn’t seem that important at the time, but suddenly seemed fresh and precious.

 

Cutting bread is always soothing. I don’t know why. Soft bread offers no resistance to the steel blade, falls into orderly patterns on the board. Ordinary bread absurdly transformed into a dish to share.

 

It has been a while since I’ve baked alone. Rose is often the inspiration in such projects, and I am just the motor. Still, we make a good team. Carrot Cake, Date Roll, Banana Muffins, Banana Bread, Apple Crisp, Lemon Pie, Lemon Bars, Cheesecake, Flan, and cookies, a few. Often a success, always a mess, we conclude with small celebrations and a quick analysis, of what to try again, and what to do better next time. I am surprised to discover that we have both acquired some skills in this area. I am surprised, too, that we have covered some ground this way -- years of my child’s now waning childhood. And that it has made us better.

 

Mix, pour, the pan scrapes the baking rack. Timer set.

 

Rose should have been at school now. It would be nearly time for them to come home for winter break, from their third year as a university student, a junior. Pandemic intervened, I was surprised to find myself grateful that they had concocted a plan to skip school for this semester, to find a job in the meantime, to live at home, and to wait out the disease a while longer.

 

In another year, we would have been opposed to, or at least wary of an interruption to their schooling. Their first job, in a rising pandemic, with skyrocketing unemployment in every industry. We thought they would discover that it’s just not that easy. But there they went, and instead, discovered they could do it. They are proving to be resilient, this one. Their creativity runs deep, it is original and daring.  

 

Rose will arrive home today, from the final day of their well-planned plan. And so today I bake. The house smells warm with a foolish medley of such sweet things. We will be a family of three for a while longer, and we will wait out this storm. ­

 

12-16-2020

Snooze Alarm

Early morning mental soup

ashen light seeps in, just barely,

muscles relax, sigh into crevices 
of my night-warmed mattress.

Elbow curls into covers just so,

feet, naked as a newborn’s have arrived 
of their own free will at this hollow between sheets,
finally warm, settled, and still.

Impervious to my husband’s snores,

my long arm emerges, squashes

the alarm clock once more,

my respite is unspoiled.

My cat arrives, perches upright on my hip,

nudges my sleepy wrist, willing it to live.

He curls around cozily, pins

my arm with the sheet.

Now, I want out.

 ©2016 Donna Jo Wallace    

Interview

Eight-twenty in the morning

and I have escaped my orbit for a day.

The highway has already spun me out

in some new direction,

another trail of false hope,

probably.

We’ll do the dance:

Handshake on One, Smile on Two,

Do the Positive Spin.

It’s the first date of the business world,

always awkward,

full of fear, and yearning.

Maybe all this

real-world play-acting

is just a dream, and

tomorrow I’ll wake to find that

the only thing I’ve really done today

is to write this poem.

©2004 Donna Jo Wallace

Front Porch

Still, I am the child who sits on the stairway,

illogically pausing where life is meant to always pass by

I ponder the brick frame of this

room that is not a room,

neither in, nor out

Here, sun and shadow,

wind and walls

banter and tease

Lines blur between houses, 
neighbors take human form

Past and present 
mingle in my mind, and
sit down with me

Such a simple thing, to break the seal of the house,

to go somewhere without going anywhere,

to breathe the air and dare to be seen

So just for a bit, I give myself permission to be here.

Content with book, breeze and birds

In the place that is not a place,

for a reason that is not a reason, and

Sip a bit

from a fresh cup of now

©2015 Donna Jo Wallace.
Note: Shared at Poets United / Poetry Pantry

Bubbles

Rainbows float across the breeze,

Small spheres of wonder.

It’s the last little bubble I love the most

Her arms waving, her laughter rising

As surely as the spheres she follows.

Spontaneously she reaches for the sticky magic

of these small rainbow spheres

Never doubting the magic that is hers

if she can only catch one.

But she never can, quite,

So she tries again and again

Again and again

Some leave their mark, wet and sticky on her hands,

And some drift free, above, take flight.

And I . . . love to make it happen

To cast my magic wand

To see her dance

To the music of bubbles.

©2006 Donna Jo Wallace.

The Day the Sidewalk Fell On Me

Falling

The wind is smacking

against the side of the house.

From my comfortable place on the couch

watching a movie with my daughter,

I think of the garbage can,

which must be blowing down the street by now.

I will just go grab it from the curb.

My foot must have caught a spot because now

I feel my body going down

straight, stiff, graceful,

like a piece of plywood caught by gravity,

arcing up, over, down, straight down.

I have no doubt of what has happened.

My tooth is inside my mouth,

I taste blood,

I hurt everywhere

a voice pours out of

my body screaming

helpme ohgod helpme.

Twenty feet from my front door

I suddenly wonder how I will make it back.

I feel my feet lift me up (I guess my knees are okay),

my left hand arrives on the doorknob.

Had I not been able to do that I do not know

what would have happened

yes I do.

I cradle my right elbow like a broken wing,

arriving screaming help me help me.

Happy people dance across the TV screen.

Lamplight warms the room.

My quiet family

does not know

how to take in my scene.

Its okay, we’re on our way.

Suddenly it seems like a good time

to see the inside of an ER.

Sleeping

Not only do the images of the ER fill my mind

harsh light, first one doctor, then another,

but this way of getting comfortable is not comfortable.

I could have told them I couldn’t sleep this way

in a sling, afraid to move,

but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. 

My initial exhaustion has abandoned me,

my mind turns churns

raking up old debris and new,

each scenario plays in my mind;

what would have happened, and 

what did, and what might, and what will.

Finally, a thought that helps:

my arm reached out (though I have no memory of it)

my arm reached out and that is why my elbow cracked.

My elbow cracked, and that is why

my head my whole head did not hit hard

against the sidewalk

with all that force.

What a good elbow.

Thank you elbow for rescuing me. 

All the rest of me.

Doctors

I am less afraid to face the doctor than the dentist,

and I am less afraid of what they will do than what they will charge.

I know my elbow is cracked and what I must do,

but my tooth, oh, my tooth.

Since the ER doctor asked if I could press it back into place,

I tried, later,

feeling like a naughty child picking at a scab.

It helped a little, but now I cannot help but wonder

at that dead feeling in my mouth where my tooth hangs, still stunned.

No one has told it yet what has happened, and it hasn’t woken up.

My family takes me, because I need them so much now;

We are at the dentist.

my husband and his strong quiet arms,

eyes that shine with love,

and my daughter, newly quiet,

though, still ready to play a game,

merciful distraction.

When the dentist speaks of healing,

perhaps orthodontics later,

some slight discoloration,

I am amazed.

It was even lucky that in that naughty moment

I pressed my tooth back into place, because now

it would have been  too late. 

I shall yet leave this adventure without a hole in my smile,

I will learn how to eat again and elbows are only bones;

they will heal. I will heal.

The Story

When people ask what happened I say I fell.

It sounds dumb because it is.

Then I have to tell them more of the story

so they don’t think there is trouble at home.

The story wears holes in my ears.

My Mind

When I go down the stairs

I feel my feet sliding out from under me.

When I walk on the sidewalk

I watch my feet with new suspicion.

I walk bravely out the front door in broad daylight

to examine the crack where it happened.

I teeter-totter

my feet over it,

I step over it

as many times as it takes.

The things that could have happened to my body

have not left my mind.

There is skill in leaving the past in the past

and I still have much to learn.

I will quiet my mind. 

I will quiet my mind.

Learning

Each new skill I discover is like a lost treasure, found.

I am thrilled to shower, to brush my teeth, to open the Tylenol by myself.

I have learned to dress myself, to feed the fish, to eat left-handed.

When I discover I can type it is like breathing again.

Curt takes command of the kitchen, and Rose helps where she is needed.

Maybe I was always working harder than I really needed to.

I am learning something about my family,

how much they need me, and I need them.

Healing

I think often of the reflexes in my arm that saved my brain.

I think of my broken wing that heals itself.

I think of the broken wings in people’s hearts that are not so easily healed,

cancers that invade organs, and tumors that appear out of nowhere.

I think of this and feel a little greedy for claiming so much attention

on account of a simple bone.

I trace my face, my arm, my unbroken skin;

The list of things that could have happened is long

each and every day.

Today I am beautiful just for being alive.

©2009 Donna Jo Wallace.
Note: Share at Poets United / Verse First

Wings

I watched a bird wobble across the road.

Right in front of my car, grave danger.

It saw the beast with the headlights and ran, ran faster.

Could not find its wings to save itself.

I wonder about my wings.

Do I suffer only because I cannot find them?

When I see the car coming

do I only run faster and faster

Instead of flying

escaping

Far above it all?

©2011 Donna Jo Wallace.

Kitty, Coffee, and Vivaldi

This is a moment claimed greedily

for coffee and music

in a moment

of stolen solitude;

My cat arrives, claims my lap,

the weight of her fur curling

and dropping in decision.

I set my coffee aside.

Warm aroma forgotten, out of reach.

I trace with my eyes

this maze of tiger stripes,

I muse on her simplicity of design,

and wild-cat charm.

She tells me the story of how

She was dipped in coffee color

And swirled around until the stripes came out right,

With just enough cream and a dash of pink paint for her nose.

Today I indulge her with time and hands that caress.

She transitions from mere comfort

to that realm of silly nirvana

that only kitties laying on their heads know.

The moment is over.

My coffee is cold, and I am left

with a lap full of fur

without the charm.

©2008 Donna Jo Wallace.