By Charles M. Sumid     Copyright 2025     Written 2000

“No, no, too much.”

She empties the measuring spoon back,
takes her granddaughter’s hand,
forms it into a cup.

“Here, feel the weight.”

Paprika falls like rust into the girl’s palm,
exactly what the sauerbraten needs,
though no recipe could say how much.

“Your hand is smaller, so a little more than full.
My mother’s hands were wide—
for her, barely covered the life line.”

A lifetime of this:
cinnamon pinched between thumb and first finger,
black pepper in the hollow where palm meets wrist,
cloves counted by how they stick against the heart line.

Her arthritis doesn’t matter—
the hands remember their portions,
their poems of scatter and gather.

She was seven, maybe eight,
standing on the stepstool
while her grandmother’s hands covered hers, guiding:

“Feel that? When basil fills the valley here, stop.
When ginger burns just slightly—enough.”

The old woman’s palms were maps of Silesia,
each scar a village,
each crease a recipe carried across water.

No books survived the crossing, but these:
the weight of caraway,
the pinch that means home,
the dust of paprika that colors
everything it touches,
everything it remembers.