Lydia Prendergast

nourish

flour-caked fingers reach inside for the contents,
the cusping handle developing a powder film as

the smell wafts over to me; static waves lagging between telephone lines,
chiseled features still present in the ever-blurring pixels.

whispers through microphones and late night tip toeing across
maple hardwood, fluorescent light illuminating our features reaching

for the citrus— that my mother keeps in the chilled barrel— giggling
in desperate hope for the mere noise that even cacophony

could supplement. i would ask why your peanut butter is always cold
when you reach back in, bringing it into warm light and i miss

the unsettling frigidity on my tongue and the warm tones of your kitchen and
you. i miss you

most of all.                              not always in the form of the simple phrase but by longing
for the heat of your body close to mine, hands intertwining

on the berry colored counter as we knead. you would handle
the flour, know i hate the feeling of it on my hands

in an act of i love you and god do i miss you—
the oven dings.