Holly Guran

I’VE ANSWERED THE BIG QUESTION

What will I cook for dinner?
And pulled out the quart of chicken stock
to thaw, abdicating to the part
of my brain that inventories:
what’s in the frig, in the cupboard,
what’s wilting but might work
in a rich lentil soup. My recipe
brain sits hands on hips
and scolds any poetic mists
that try to enter. This section
was inserted when I left college
to wed and foresaw a life
of cooking ahead, partly choice
(I wanted to excel), but also, I allowed
the chain link fence of tradition.
Today I admit, as I’ve heard
others my age say, I no longer
want to cook. By five pm
my back and neck, beset,
beg for rest. My husband says, I’m sorry
you are tired and have to cook
while he stretches out in the chair
that tilts back, his legs elevated.

Holly Guran’s collection, Now Before and Ever, appeared September 2023. Author of Twilight Chorus, River of Bones and two chapbooks, Holly received a Massachusetts Cultural Council award. The popular Boston reading series she helps coordinate encourages new writers to try out their work. Selections from her narrative poems, based on a 19th century correspondence between a mill girl and the editor she married, have been performed at the Lowell National Historic Park.