Subsistence Economy

After the blight she thought often
of the steamed bun skins she’d
thrown away her whole life.
Lapping up anti-carb hate lit, peeling
those fluffy white skins, tasting
those fillings: pasty red bean, charred
meat, gooey custard, demure lotus seed.

Fingertips scorched, mouth and tongue
burnt by tiny bursts of steam,
chewing through a world of yesterday’s
textures. So many skins on so many
plates – a harvested mountain,
foothills of ivory dough puffing up,
frothing to a crimson peak.

She could have, should have
eaten that for a lifetime. Ahead
was a realm of alien textures,
new appetites to wrestle,
fresh dangers to feed;
still she dreamed
of those steamed bun skins.

This poem first appeared in Aimsir Journal: Lúnasa 2024, 26 September 2024.

About Bread, Germany, 1944
​
I can see myself. A small girl. White vest, black, ballooning
shorts, handmade. She stands on a milestone, giving her the height
to overlook the wheatfield, trying to see the wave.
In the distance a cuckoo calls.

The children have finished picking out the
potato beetles and their larvae by turning over each leaf,
walking slowly through the field where row after row
of the potato green thrives, ready for August. I see the girl
in front of the big farmer’s wife, her apron a sea of colours,
here and there slightly soiled. The woman presses
the big round loaf against her swelling belly,
cuts it in half and hands the child a slice as long
as two of her hands after spreading some lard.

The girl is walking home from the bakery.
The baker lady cut out two coupons from the ration
card. Under the child’s left arm, a big, crusty loaf.
With her right hand, and an experienced finger, she hollows
the bread through the crust from the exposed end.
At this moment she doesn’t think about consequences.

They picked up the last wheat from farmer Braun’s
field after he finished the harvesting. Mother
carried it home in a bag she’d brought. Left the stalks
to dry on the windowsill, beat out the grains.
She sits, the coffee mill between her legs,
her dress sagging between her thighs.

​If we find enough firewood, we’ll have
a small fresh loaf tomorrow.
If the train doesn’t get bombed,
Father will arrive just in time.

From her poetry collection LIFE STUFF, Kelsay Books November 2023.

Glamour

Aunt Lil wore her black hat at a coquettish angle,
its little veil pulled over her forehead.
She was Arpège and blood-red lipstick,
long, pointed fingernails to match, nylon stockings,
everything I wanted to be one day.
She bought me ‘Schillerlocken’*.

My uncle was a lawyer,
a tall tree in a forest of lesser trees.
He seldom bent down to my ten-year-old,
somewhat undernourished body.
With a stentorian voice he hinted
that I was making a nuisance of myself
just by being a kid.
I found out later that he had always thought
my mother a creature of a lesser race.
She didn’t speak like one is used to hearing.

It was whispered behind fluttering hands
that Aunt Lil had been a barmaid.
Now she was the wife of a professional,
was perfume and lace, and a deep-red slit
replaced her mouth when she laughed.
Which she didn’t do often.

The idea that this childless couple would look after me
for ten days while my mother went back
to East Germany (in danger of being sent to a Russian
gulag if caught) to sort out the lives we left behind in a hurry
had been hammered out between the women.

Uncle Fried looked at me across the huge dining table
as he would a fly and frowned.
‘Has nobody shown you how to eat
with knife and fork, child?’
My voice not quite steady from fear:
‘We had nothing to cut, Uncle.’

*
“Schillerlocken” is a sweet, cone-shaped German pastry. The name was inspired by the typical curly wigs that men, like the German poet Friedrich Schiller, used to wear in the 18th century.”

From her poetry collection LIFE STUFF, Kelsay Books November 2023.

BIO: A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels and eight poetry collections, her work has been widely published in US poetry journals. www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com