Meter Monday: "Formula"

by Alice Xu

Grandmother slaps dough

onto the cutting board, rolling

it over once more. Recipe―a memory

performed in motion: fleshed veins

when she flattens, angle of hers arms,

arch of her hunchback.

The flour spreads like pollen. Rolls

sliced and stuffed and staggered

while the oven goes off, and the final batch

goes in. This is morning: the counting down

as flour and dough lines her palm and the scent

of cooked beef escaping from the oven cracks.

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