Still Life in Mobile Home

by Joseph Sweetnam

Time for dinner a time for dinner. 8: time for dinner. Ate: a roasted bird. 9. By night through desert. A kitchen that is on the run. I am crossing another’s country with Linda Rehberg and Lois Conway, authors of Bread Machine Magic as well as: More Bread Machine Magic. Recipe books for “old country bread” passed down from Grandma Nan who lived in County Meath. An old country is still, moving, rocking-chairly. We cross the interstate moving, still, moving still, coffee pot on burner numbered signs pin down the landscape. 10. A time for dessert. “3,000 miles of strawberry ice cream.” Or Rocky Road with X marks. Keep the bones for a later stew. East towards the Buffalo Grain Silos, long abandoned. New country bread, a concrete defeatism. Still we drive all night. 8, breakfast. Ate: weak stew from weak broth with Morris and Evelyn’s Old World Pumpernickel:

1 1/2 POUND LOAF

2 tablespoons miller’s bran

1 cup potato water, cooled (for 1

welbilt/Dak machines add 2

tablespoons more water)

3 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 cup rye flour

2 tablespoons cornmeal

1/2 cup plain mashed potato, at

room temperature

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 tablespoons butter or

margarine

1 1/2 tablespoons molasses

1 teaspoon caraway seeds

3 teaspoons Red Star brand

active dry yeast for all

machines

“This bread is named for Lois’s parents because they adore Old World breads such as this one.” A recipe referring back but who can follow the bread crumbs for the speed. Yet follow as words blur. Ate: [Greek] “It is a liminal domain suspended between life and death.” Piece of bone,

The water in which you cooked the potato.

peace of grave. River Lethe of chocolate syrup. Echoes through forgotten silos, maybe more than just ourselves.

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Joseph is a recent college graduate who works in childcare and freelance editing. He lives in California.