Miss American Pie

It was a slow Sunday afternoon
and I was standing in the kitchen
up to my elbows in flour, sugar and spice
as I attempted to make a sweet potato pie.
I had made the dough from butter and scratch
and let it sit in the freezer for a while.
I whipped together sweet potato filling but
When it came time to roll the dough
it stuck to everything like putty,
all gooey, messy and very uncooperative.
So I covered it in flour and battered it
with my rolling pin that kept getting stuck
in the heart of the sticky white lump.
The flour was flying and still I kneaded and pushed,
rolled and flattened until I finally had a circle
that I could put in my pan and be done with.
So I pressed the dough into my pan,
filled the unbaked crust with the spicy orange filling
and shoved it in the oven, glad to be through
with the whole sad and messy ordeal.
An hour later I had a pit that didn't look
too bad, but a kitchen that looked
as if it barely survived a food fight.
My dogs happily licked the flour off the floor
and I knew that I'd never be Martha Stewart.
But I guess that's ok because as long as
I put my heart into it, my family can taste
the love that got baked inside it
like a little blackbird trying to peck its way
through the golden brown crust.

November 26, 2002