Embrace
BY MAGGIE DIETZ
Years I think I spent in the kitchen wishing
The imprint of your herringbone sweater into
My skin. Years disrobing potatoes, pinching
Salt, hoisting scalding cast iron onto racks.
My ear on your shoulder, fug of oysters
And strawberries from under your lifted arms.
Months on months of spelt and thyme and
Crisped chicken thighs. My back a door
Your hand thumped softly. Years I folded
Napkins into birds, set plates you’d transfer
To a tray and take upstairs. I moved the
Chairs to mop but you’d outgrown the game
That made the hallway row of them a train.
When I made the eggless cake nobody
Laughed when vinegar hit the hump of soda.
Your coarser hair, a cruder color, mopped
My cheek. Whole calendars elapsed with
Me kneading and whisking and you
Notching inches onto the wall. Years I was
The vinegar. Moon upon moon, cans
In and out of the pantry. You didn’t even
Clear your throat the afternoon you found me,
Hunched at the cutting board, back to
the door, wearing my stained striped apron.
Metamorphosis
BY MAGGIE DIETZ
In white sunlight we unzipped the lid
Of the habitat, a miniature pop-up hamper.
The butterflies had arrived by mail,
Still worms, spindled and sharp-looking,
Little tailless seahorses, unfurling in
A plastic tub with goo at the bottom
Like suet—the caterpillars’ food, dotted
With frass. I didn’t point out that they shit
Where they eat or that Painted Ladies
Sounds like a polite term for prostitutes.
We were to keep them misted and away
From bright windows. The webbing
Wasn’t worrisome, we read—in the wild
It kept them stuck to plants and they could
Pull the silk to close a leaf around them
And hide from bad guys. For days nothing
Happened. You hunched next to the buffet
Watching yourself watch them in the mirror.
From the doorway I watched the way
Your hair curled at the base of your neck
As you sweated, the way your t-shirt when you
Sprayed the mister showed your tan lines.
You were there when one let go a ghost,
A gauze of skin almost too soft to see.
After we moved the paper disc affixed
With shivering chrysalides, after more
Boring thrilling days of waiting, the pods
Darkened and the first one ruptured
Into a crumpled butterfly, a balled batik
Handkerchief spilling from a pocket.
Next came the slow calico explosion,
The beating and pulsing that burst
The wings into being. You may not
Remember but I do: you were beside
Yourself, pulsing, triumphant. Four
Hatchings and two days of sugar water
Later it was time to let them go. You weren’t
Sad—we’d read it was the right thing.
You toted the mesh cylinder out to the
Picnic table and opened the flap just enough
To let one land. A leftover scuff of polish
On your fingernail. Your teeth still short
And rounded, two rows of sugar-pearl corn.
The sun shone down as one by one
You gave them to the sky.
Maggie Dietz is author of the poetry collections If You Would Let Me, That Kind of Happy, and Perennial Fall. The founding director of the Favorite Poem Project, she teaches at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.
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