It is ironic that on Poetry Day Ireland today’s prompt threw me right back to my origins. That Proustian madeleine for me is a Hershey’s Dark Special chocolate bar. You can take the girl out of PA, but apparently the woman’s stomach is still ensconced there. Like many translocated people, what we miss is the food of our childhood. I have resided in three countries, so today’s prompt “to explore the sense of taste” was pure nostalgia.
Happy Poetry Day Ireland, from Ireland, even if my stomach is still in PA (that’s Pennsylvania for those of you not raised in state.)
Do You Miss It?
Do you miss it?
they ask. And I say, No!
Which is not entirely
a lie. Here’s why.
I may not be
a PA shoofly pie
kind of woman.
And please! Hold the scrapple!
But here’s the thing…
Streusel topping.
On apple pie.
Cinnamon. Butter. Sugar
It takes me home. Well,
no more. Maybe 40 years ago.
I don’t miss it.
Or birch beer. Or Rolling Rock.
But it lingers
On the palate.
Like the taste of chawed
curl of silver birch bark.
Penn’s Woods. And orchard
apple butter on toast.
When they have me
on the slab, opening me
they will find Marcellus
rock seam. It tastes
of green. Or did,
before they got a craving
for gas. Which spoils
the appetite for your supper.
So no. I don’t miss it.
Except, I guess, I do.
Sojourning Smith 