For Steven

The clink of tin cups in the kitchen rouses my ears. I close my book, hold my place with a fingertip while I listen: to the measuring cups, little quarrels of half against quarter, then the sifted hush of the flour. There will be kneading, there will be punching down, and rising and rising again, the press of increase constrained by the small square box in the oven, the immutable passage of time, and finally a home and a hunger filled with fragrant gold. I return to my reading, but first I thank the kitchen gods for what marriage is: throughout this immutable passage, these square impossible constraints, these petty clinkings of half against quarter, and oh this needing, oh this falling and this rising, I am blessed with a husband who makes bread