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Perogie Day
by Kimberly Dawn Rempel
Shiny metal bowls sit on the old wood table
brimming with mounds
of homemade cottage cheese.
The cottage cheese is crumbly and smells
like an old woman in a stale apartment.
We roll out the dough on the old wood table
where we once ate oatmeal and toast
when we were twelve.
We work in the dining room
where we had often
stayed up until 2:30 in the morning
slaving on last minute homework.
My two younger sisters and I
Will fashion the crumbling cheese
and rolled out dough
into perogies with mom.
We have come without our husbands.
It is a day for girls
Steph, the youngest, rolls the dough.
The middle child, Char, and I
spoon cheese into dough circles,
and pinch the edges together.
I tease Steph – seventeen
About her new boyfriend.
“He’s just a friend!”
she objects with a telling grin.
And she pouts.
Char scoops into a mountain
of cottage cheese
and I pin down her spoon with mine.
A spoon fight breaks out
and we fence like veteran warriors.
Mother laughs.
“Will you ever grow up?”
“Nope!”
Steph rubs a doughy finger
on Char’s nose, leaving a white streak.
Char wears it all day; for spite.
Mother eyes our amateur technique,
And rushes over to give lessons.
“Girls, what are you doing?
THIS is how you make perogies.”
And she would pinch the dough together so tight
It would squish through her fingers.
I hold it up to the light; it is transparent.
“Here, see? Pinch! Pinch! Pinch!
Put some elbow grease into it!”
I grin from ear to ear.
I am twelve,
and my mother is showing me
how to make cookies.
I am twelve, and my mother is showing me
how to cut the grass.
I glance sideways at Char. She’s grinning too.
We burst out laughing,
we are twelve.
The afternoon yields 24 dozen perogies;
we’ll each have some for our freezers.
With doughy fingers, and white streaked noses;
our sweaters and pants blotted with flour,
we scrape counters clean, and wash metal bowls.
I hunch over the garbage can;
blocking the hallway.
I dust wasted flour into the garbage can.
Char walks across the open kitchen,
and squeezes past me sideways,
just brushing my back.
A forgotten shiver awakens along my spine.
My cheek tingles like a leg that has fallen asleep.
We have done this every day.
I grin from ear to ear
because we’re twelve. |
