Strudel
Plumping dough, her fingers buried deep
in the creamy yellow blend
of flour, water and oil,
her flabby forearm, now taut
with effort as she rolled and rolled,
the dough slithered, trying to escape
held back, pummelled, shaped, reshaped.
She stretched and stretched its surface, skin
deep, wafer thin, piled it high
with chopped apples, their sour tang
sweetened with brown sugar, raisins,
ground almonds, cinnamon. The cooking
apples the boy who loved his mother
ate raw - she made into a special pie
without raisins for him,
she so loved her boy; but for me
who brought her pain from the womb,
just strudel, warm and spiced
with the after-taste of home.
in the creamy yellow blend
of flour, water and oil,
her flabby forearm, now taut
with effort as she rolled and rolled,
the dough slithered, trying to escape
held back, pummelled, shaped, reshaped.
She stretched and stretched its surface, skin
deep, wafer thin, piled it high
with chopped apples, their sour tang
sweetened with brown sugar, raisins,
ground almonds, cinnamon. The cooking
apples the boy who loved his mother
ate raw - she made into a special pie
without raisins for him,
she so loved her boy; but for me
who brought her pain from the womb,
just strudel, warm and spiced
with the after-taste of home.
Jude Rosen lives in London and works as a free-lance researcher on urban cultures and citizenship, and as an interpreter and translator.
Page(s) 9
magazine list
- Features
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- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
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- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The