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Prairie Schooner 77.3 (2003) 18-24



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Two Poems

Lee Ann Roripaugh


Nanking Cherry Jam

The robins squabbled over the berries
late in the summer
when they began to ferment - slick bruised

pulp intoxicating the birds into
a raucous frenzy.
Sometimes one would break into crooked flight,

become confused and crash into the clear,
shining expanse of
the porch-room window. Knocked out cold, toothpick

legs stabbing the air, its orange paunch was
incongruous among
the slender limbs of iris, who unfurled

their yellow-striped tongues and lifted their frilled
wrists up to assume
the statuesque poses of flamenco [End Page 18]

dancers. Each time a robin was fallen,
my mother sat guard
on the back porch, poised with a garden hose,

waiting to spray any cat who came by
looking to snatch up
a non-confrontational meal. But wait.

I've almost forgotten all about
the cherry blossoms.
How they began as tight green buds the size

of glass pinheads, then erupted almost
overnight like strings
of popcorn - puffy and white, with a faint

pink blush. A tiny bird, not a sparrow,
would come to nibble
at the petals. After awhile they'd begin to loosen

themselves from their moorings of stem, bud, branch,
carried by the breeze
so that it was almost a winter blizzard

again outside the dining-room windows,
except for the heat,
the lazy, sweet pink haze of fragrance that

hypnotized the bumblebees, fat and furred,
who came to rumble
their deep-throated purr into the sticky waxed

ears of flowers. I thought my mother seemed
happier in the
company of cherry blossoms. She used [End Page 19]

to say that once you leave a place, it's best
not to be always
looking over your own shoulder, but I

don't see how this could be true. I remember
the taste of the jam
she used to make from the Nanking Cherries.

Underneath the milky paraffin cap,
not quite the color
of garnets, but more pink, like rhodolites,

we spread it in sticky clumps over warm
yellow squares of corn
bread, or across wedges of morning toast -

and though the jam was always bittersweet
against my tongue,
I still could taste the fragrant blood-red fruit.

Antelope Jerky

That smell, something like wet dog, stayed
on our hands days
after skinning the gutted meat

shell of hollowed-
out antelope on the back lawn -
alternately [End Page 20]

shearing through the opaque membrane
of fat that held
skin to flesh with a hunting knife,

or pulling off
larger sections of hide by punching
down with a clenched

fist to reveal the cool smooth lengths
of sinewy
purple meat. Finally, the hooves

and head were sawed
off, my father performing a sort
of craniotomy

to salvage the pronghorn antlers,
boyish and pleased.
On the mountains, quaking aspens

were beginning
to turn, and the chill settling in
as the porch light

was turned on had the precision
edge to etch out
lacy frost flowers overnight

on the window
panes. Our fingers ached underneath
the garden hose

as we rinsed off knives, gristly bits
of grainy bone
caught in the saw's teeth. The next day [End Page 21]

my mother honed
her fierce cleaver, long boning knives,
stainless steel shears,

and butchered the antelope one
limb at a time,
my father performing tidy

amputations
in the garage and bringing in
a new section

when my mother called him to say
she was ready.
The meat was carved into steaks, chunked

into stew meat -
slivers and odd bits tossed into
a metal bowl

for jerky. My mother neatly
wrapped everything
in freezer paper and labeled

the packages
in Japanese with black magic
marker, English

translations underneath to be
polite. There was
a special jerky recipe -

brown sugar, soy-
sauce, black pepper and Worcestershire,
onion powder. [End Page 22]

The leftover meat was fashioned
into slitted
strips, marinated overnight,

then hung in rows
over the wire oven racks. Low
heat for a day,

the house smoky, warm fragrance of
teriyaki,
everyone so impatient

to taste - that same
jerky still in storage today...

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