Apple Spice Cookies

We’re cutting apples,
the oven heated to 350°.
Let’s make cookies, I had said,
and you shrugged, watching me
as I began to measure and mix
until I looked at you
pointedly
and put you to work.
Now I’m helping, my modest knife
making smaller cuts while yours,
the “manly knife,” handles bigger wedges.
Neither of us talking, the kitchen silent
except for the clop, clop of the knives
against the board. Emphasized silence.

My face turns to the work, while inside
my mind is turning, turning,
unable to dismiss the words that slip,
unsaid,
though the charged air.
Several minutes tick away, rising
and falling with the beat of the knives.
I wait for the silence to break
like thunder announcing the storm.
But it doesn’t.
And so I speak. And you speak.
Our words fall in beat with our work,
soft, measured, cautious,
but true. Real.

Our knives still, the work done.
The apples fall into the batter,
disappearing beneath oats and nutmeg.
Our eyes meet across the counter,
mine ocean-grey, yours mountain-brown.
I look away first and begin dolloping
the would-be cookies onto wax paper,
trying hard to create uniformity
out of the uneven blobs.
You sidestep the counter,
removing the space between us,
and lean into the bend of my neck.
Again your words are few, whispered,
but they are enough.

The cookies are in the oven now—
I think they will be good.