First Rise
Sixty-two years after I was lifted up
into the cab of my uncle’s farm truck,
I return to where my grandmother’s house
once stood. Only the light of the early morning sun
remains. What did I think I would find?
The start of that long ago trip north to Alaska
exists in a photograph someone took
as my grandmother, her back to the camera,
reached into the truck. Her hand on mine
will linger there until the photo fades.
The salty taste of missing can fill a mouth,
distort time the way a canyon
distorts sound. On this August morning,
I smell my grandmother’s bread baking,
feel her flour-dusted apron against my cheek.
I touch the rim of her ceramic bread bowl,
and I remember how bread rises before
it is punched down and shaped.
*
Cindy Buchanan grew up in Alaska, graduated from Gonzaga University, and lives in Seattle. Her work has been published previously in journals including Evening Street Press, Tipton Poetry Journal, Rabid Oak, The MacGuffin, Hole in the Head Review, and Chestnut Review. She is grateful to her monthly poetry groups and the community at Hugo House for their wisdom and support. Her first chapbook, Learning to Breathe, was published in 2023 by Finishing Line Press.
Lovely poem. Subtly ominous.