Recipe Box

My brown wooden file holds a life
of tattered, kitchen-soiled 3x5s:

Brown-sugar coconut topped Oatmeal Cake
retired from the middle school home ec contest
after winning three years in a row, written
in my mother’s school-teacher cursive.

Grandma’s German Dills & Gherkins,
seven sweets & sours at holiday dinners.

Christmas Sugars & Wagon Wheels,
in a younger sister’s green-inked calligraphy.

A high-school best friend’s never-used Nacho Recipe,
lost like she was, for over fifteen years.

Clove & nutmeg perfumed Pumpkin Bread,
in a younger brother’s then-round script.

Chinese marinade Shiska-Bobs roasted
over a wood fire in a South Dakota warming house,
after a full-moon night of cross-country skiing.

The reinvented in-law family secret
Chili Sauce, ground just right, typed.

From the hundred-year flooded Mississippi,
Wisconsin Beer Batter for fresh-caught fish.

Indian Curry in Buffalo from my cardamom-scented
walking partner, in her British-schooled hand.

Almond Biscotti translated into English measurements
by a first-generation Italian mother of three in Ohio.

Eucharistic Bread given in Communion
by hard-praying Rhode Island women,
who gifted me with much more
than a hand-flung pottery batter bowl.