I dream that it’s
a weeknight
and you are alive
again. I dream
that I’m the first
to make it home.
You see, I can
manhandle a whole
chicken now. Add
vegetables in
the proper order.
None too mushy,
none too much
to the tooth.
And out of respect
for your sense
of economy,
born of privation
and genuine
open-mindedness,
I check the fridge.
I gather your half-onion
from Sunday breakfast,
the salvageable
parts from a bag
of carrots.
Check the date
on the milk.
Defrost the chicken
and peas, water
the dried-out
flour until
it’s workable.
I’ll top the pie
with biscuits
as weightless
as my mother’s.
In the dream
I’m whisking the gravy
when you walk in.
I notice your eyes
are weary when I lean
to kiss you.
I am asking you,
for God’s sake,
asking you
how it went today.
I’m laughing at
something
your coworker said.
All the while,
I’m cobbling up
a dish on which
I was raised
and which you will,
with great suspicion,
call American,
but that, in fifty-
or-so minutes,
when it emerges
bubbling and golden,
will entice
and delight
and feed you.
Amanda Gunn’s debut poetry collection, Things I Didn’t Do With This Body, was published by Copper Canyon Press. Raised in Connecticut, she worked as a medical copy editor for 13 years before earning an MFA in poetry from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars. She is the recipient of the Missouri Review Editors’ Prize, the Auburn Witness Poetry Prize, and a Pushcart Prize, as well as fellowships from the Wallace Stegner Program at Stanford, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and MacDowell. She is a PhD candidate in English and American Literature at Harvard.