Weight

‘in medias res’ poetry prompt

Flour dusted fingers
Measure from memory
Family favorites
Pound cakes made
A thousand times

I level the cup ignoring
the pain traveling arm to shoulder
Sifting dry ingredients
Dusting off expectations

Losing count
eyeing the scarred mixing bowl
mentally calculating weighty things
the mound of white
keeps quiet

Making me guess
at all this heart
Must need to say

There is a war going on
Inside these precious chambers
Life is under siege
Squeezing me

Between present and past
The preheating is over
The oven timer beckons
insisting on its charge —

()..()()…()()…()()()()()..()..()()…()()…()…()…()………….

So much left unfinished
I muse idly from my place
on the floor

My cheekbone rests hard
against dull parquet squares
as if I’ve got all the time
in the world yet

Unable to comply

The buzzer grows petulant
I spy bits of food,
a bread bag twist tie
between oven and floor

Weightless cobwebs
and measured regrets
crush my chest

too much it seems
has been left to chance

Copyright, 2021 S.L. Knight. All Rights Retained.

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