We crouched low in the attic’s throat,
where the air bent with moth whispers,
lifted that tin—its hinges creaked
like her voice had, in her ninety-fourth year.
Paper, browning as old teeth,
slipped through the grip of decades,
slender as the secrets she carried,
her cursive looping like unraveling yarn.
Flour, teaspoons of salt, her vowels
curved in tender arcs, strange
as an echo from a past tongue.
We didn’t read—so much as guess,
piecing recipes like starlight, faint and errant.
Was this nutmeg, beneath the sprawl?
Was \"sift\" the word, or \"shift\"—
the flour breath of her kitchen, still alive.
Each card a map to hunger and home,
each smudge of grease a fingerprint
from the wrist of a hand stirring
what we, too, might one day crumble into.
Her cursive crawled like whispers back
to their silence, leaving only fragrance—
an ancient crust on our tongues,
the rebirth of something unnamed.