Sourdough for Sara

Grandma’s sleeves are rolled to the elbows.
Her fingers feather through
flour, salt, water, punch them
into sourdough plump as a baby’s chuckle
as her mother had taught her.
And she tells us, her words dropping
like the thud of the dough
against the big earthenware bowl

that in those days she and Sara plodded
at their mother’s side in a throb of heat,
that the wagon wheels beat up grey dust
that swirled like sparring wolves.
Lips dry as baked clay, necks larded
with boils they knotted blades of prairie grass
into fists for camp fires, boiled
water from the Platte where wiggle tails
scribbled their question marks;
baked lightin’ bread black as charcoal
outside, rubberized inside
in the cast-iron kettle.

And Sara, haloed in her white calico bonnet
sang as her reflection flowered river water,
sang as she squatted at the water bucket,
scrubbed the dish rag with lye soap;
sang till the first rasping rusted her voice,
till the first spasm jack-knifed her body
and the spurt of her vomit arced

into the dust.

And Greatgrandma, once past
that small mound at the roadside
walked with lead in her moccasins;
talked with gravel in her throat;
saw Indians in the fire; heard hyenas
in her sleep; knotted prairie grass tighter;
boiled water for longer.

Punching, patting, folding, turning,
Grandma’s fingers shape the dough
into a loaf, shape it to a letter S
as her mother had taught her.
Shape it for Sara.