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"Journeybread Recipe" by Lawrence Schimel

“Even in the kitchen there wasthe smell of journey” —Anne Sexton, “Little Red Riding Hood”


1. In a tupperware wood, mix child and hood. Stir slowly. Add

wolf.

2. Turn out onto a lightly floured path, and begin the walk home

from school.

3. Sweeten the journey with candied petals: velvet tongues of

violet, a posy of roses. Soon you will crave more.

4. Knead the flowers through the dough as wolf and child converse,

tasting of each others flesh, a mingling of scents.

5. Now crack the wolf and separate the whites—the large eyes, the

long teeth—from the yolks.

6. Fold in the yeasty souls, fermented while none were watching.

You are too young to hang out in bars.

7. Cover, and, warm and moist, let the bloated belly rise nine

months.

8. Shape into a pudgy child, a dough boy, lumpy but sweet. Bake

half an hour.

9. Just before the time is up—the end in sight, the water

broken–split the top with a hunting knife, bone-handled and sharp.

10. Serve swaddled in a wolfskin throw, cradled in a basket and

left on a grandmother’s doorstep.

11. Go to your room. You have homework to be done. You are too

young to be in the kitchen, cooking.

(Endicott Studio)

“Her branches were covered with hundreds of yellow ribbons, fluttering like leaves in the moonlight.”

—“Ties of Love” by Lawrence Schimel

“My father and I hardly spoke when he picked me up at the train station, nor during the long drive out to the farm through the snow-covered landscape.”

—“Ties of Love” by Lawrence Schimel

“Take the cat out of the sphinx and what is left? Riddle me that. Take the horse away from the centaur and you take away the sleek grace, the strength of harnessed power. What is left can still run across fields, after a fashion, but it is easily winded; What is left will therefore erect buildings to divide the open plains, so he no longer must face the wide expanses where once his equine legs raced the winds and, sometimes, won. Take the bull from the minotaur but what is left will still assemble a herd for the sake of ruling over it. What is left will kill for sport, in an arena thronged with spectators shouting 'olé!' at each deadly thrust. Take the fish from the merman; What is left can still swim, if only with lots of splashing; gone is the sleek sliding through waves, alert to the subtle changes in the current. What is left will build ships so he can cross the oceans without getting his feet wet; what is left won't care if his boats pollute the seas he can no longer breathe, so long as their passage can keep him from sinking. Take the goat from the saytr but what is left will dance out of reach before you have a chance to get that Dionysian streak of mischief, the love of music and wine, the rutting parts that like to party all the say through. What is left will still be stubborn and refuse to give way: what is left will lock horns and butt heads with anyone who challenges him. Take the bird from the harpy but the memory of flying, a constant yearning ache for skies so tantalizingly distant, will still remain, as will the established pecking orders, the bitter squabblings over food and territory, and the magpie eye that lusts for shiny objects. What is left will cut down whole forests to feather his sprawling urban nest. At the end of these operations, tell me: what is left? The answer: man, a creature divorced from nature, who's forgotten where he came from.”

—‘How to Make a Human’, Lawrence Schimel
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