In this yeast that spits, we turn
our knuckles white and raw
like overripe peaches. In 1,000 years,
I wonder if I’ll remember how
you smelled: hickory and oaked, like earth
growing under your careful hands
like a god. Sometimes we sneak a taste
of our humble beginnings: you claim I cut
my knee peddling too fast downhill,
as you crack an egg and it turns to gold,
or when I threw a baseball indoors, smashing
my mother’s window, as you peel barked lips
of a vanilla stick, scraping for its silver.
In 1,000 years, I hope they find us dead
and open us like coco beans for secrets
of sweetness, embalm our limbs, jewel
our bare throats like queens. We’ll speak
to our diggers in the gingerbread they found
near our feet. Our museum text will read:
no greater strength comes from two bodies
split to reveal how sugar is made
in their own mouths: a species learned
to harvest air and spin it to divine:
see the village bloom in their veins.
Audrey Spina
Audrey Spina holds a BA in Art History and English from Wheaton College, Massachusetts and a MA in Poetry from Bridgewater State University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in North Dakota Quarterly, Another New Calligraphy, They Call Us Bossy, Sublunary Review, Bandit Fiction, Babe Lincoln, and The Graduate Review. She is a writer from Southeastern New England.
Artwork: Alexandra Khitrova, Phoenix Egg
Website: https://www.deviantart.com/gaudibuendia
Gingerbread House Lit Mag 