Recipe for My Daughter

Cherry
Poem of the week

By SoulFire77

Sat, 21 Feb 2026
  • 288 reads
9 comments
 

You'll need the morning I found out -
not the fact but the faucet
still running, the water hitting the steel basin
in that particular pitch that means
no one has remembered to turn it off,
and my hand was wet when I touched my own face
as if checking whether I was the same shape.

You'll need flour. Any flour.
What matters is the dusting on the counter,
the way it holds the print
of whatever pressed against it - a knuckle,
the heel of a rolling pin, the place
where I leaned both hands flat and breathed
like a woman in labor - though the body
doesn't always know what it's no longer doing.

Sugar. The amount your grandmother used,
which was always too much. She measured
with a coffee cup that had no handle
and when I asked her once why that cup
she said because it's the one I have.

Now the heat. Not the oven.
The heat behind the sternum.

Mix until your arms ache.

What it makes is ordinary.
What it makes is ordinary and you will eat it
standing at the counter
and your daughter will ask you for the recipe
and you will give her
the cup with no handle
and tell her nothing.

Certificate 15
Poem
Scars, Tears, and Wounds Like Weapons: The Poetry
Inspiration Point (work that responds to our weekly writing cue)

Comments

Submitted by SoulFire77 on

Image Credit:

https://unsplash.com/photos/person-pouring-flour-on-table-beside-eggs-an...

 

Submitted by HarryC on

Makes me think of times as a kid when I stood beside mum while she made cakes. Best bit was when I got to scrape the bowl out afterwards. And always that cup with no handle there.

So well captured in these few well-chosen words and images. That's what it's about.

Submitted by GlosKat on

Jay, you remind us of the days, before food processors and bread making machines, that we touched the food we were making, and put physical effort into it.  I love to grow my own vegetables, even though they are so cheap in the supermarket, but the physical effort I put into growing them gives them a value no shop bought veggies would have.

Harry, you remind me that the cake mixture was always much more delicious than the cooked cake ! 

 

Submitted by HarryC on

Yes, it was! Especially if it had bits of raisin in it! It was the next best thing to eating ice cream.

I still have and use my mum's old wooden spoon. It was a wedding present, so is almost 80 years old now!

Submitted by insertponceyfre... on

Great IP response - thank you

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

I enjoyed this IP response very much, Thank You. Also for explaining about cup measurements which are in so many recipes online, am never sure if cups are the same here as in America - I think perhaps I am being too pernicketty!

 

Submitted by celticman on

nice take on IP, and life, generally. 

 

Submitted by D G Moody on

I find great peace in working with food - especially such as making my own pizzas; this elequent poem captured this for me.

Dougie Moody

Submitted by onemorething on

This is our Poem of the Week! Congratulations!