Napo 12

 

Admiring Elizabeth Muscari’s “Cannoli”

 

This poem answers the question of how to handle grief. It uses the metaphor of making cannoli for dealing with something difficult—a parent remarrying another person, a family torn apart, a divorce.

 

The speaker seems to handle grief in the same way she handles the cannoli dough—silently and seemingly with ease. Ah hah. That’s really apt, really good.

 

Let’s tease it apart a little:

 

So the structure of the poem strikes me at first glance. We have a couplet in the beginning, then most of the poem is tercets, then the last stanza is once again a couplet. Since the poem is about marriage and divorce and maybe an affair, that makes the structure even more interesting to me.

 

Ok, so the poem is also about two sisters who deal with this grief in different ways. One is open about it, but the speaker is silent about it. From the beginning of the poem, we learn about the sister because she apparently punched the speaker “at our father’s second wedding” so they make cannoli together.

 

Then the open oscillates between the tenor (grieving a divorce) and vehicle (the cannoli), tying the two together with plenty of grounding. The speaker smooths “clumps of ricotta in a bowl” like the way she presumably smooths over emotions. She, like the dough, is “good” because they “obey”—in the case of the dough, fingertips. In the case of the speaker—society’s/her parents’ expectations for grief. Both the speaker and the dough catch their “breath after every hard press.” Even in difficulties/hot water, both the speaker and the cannolis “stay intact.” That’s how the poem ends.

 

But there’s a little more to the poem here—the speaker is compared to her sister, who can’t deal with grief in the same manner, or perhaps won’t/knows it’s unhealthy to be sieved into silence. As the sister helps make the dough, her emotion “pulses in her palm.” So much going on here. I’m left wondering which sister is healthier? On the surface, the calm one, but she’s just bottling up her emotion and being a good girl. How sad.

 

Moments in the poem I really admire:

 

“sour inheritance” oooo… sour like ricotta cheese. Nice. It must be disguised in chocolate and vanilla sweetness. Very good.

 

“Pulses in her palm” to describe emotion. There’s some lovely alliteration there too.

 

“This is good dough; it obeys fingertips” is a perfect, perfect line.

 

“the way grief sieves me into silence” –I don’t understand this comparison. How can grief sieve a person? A sieve separates clumps of powdered sugar. Maybe grief diminishes the speaker? Cuts her spirit into smaller, silent pieces?

 

“Clasped” is also a good verb—“clasped their folds”

 

Anyway…

 

Prompt ideas:

Write a poem about baking.

Write a poem about dealing with grief that deals in metaphor.

Play with stanza lengths to represent something thematic about your poem.

 

I know a little bit about working with dough myself. I’ve gotten really good at working with dough to make strudels, how to separate the dough into tiny layers, keep them moist, so they bake up buttery and crispy and delicious, while holding it all together. But sometimes, my strudels still burst.

 

And the more you practice grief, it doesn’t necessarily get easier, but you get better at it. I’m going to write a poem about making strudel and dealing with grief/loss/disappointment. I could also do cheesecake—I’m good at that too, lots of practice, and it’s never easy. Always unpredictable. 

 

You have to do everything perfectly, but still, even if you do, sometimes the strudel bursts. That’s life.

 

 

Cherry Strudel

 

This is how I deal with disappointment:

Baking strudels. It’s something one must practice

 

To get good at. My first time was a mess

Of sticky cherries, gummy dough, and scalded sugar

 

on the pan that took weeks of scrubbing to be rid of.

Since then, I’ve learned to work with dough

 

That’s difficult: knead it carefully with patience

Until it finally obeys the fingertips’ commands,

 

To let it breathe a moment in between such kneading,

to chop the cherries small to quell the sour tang—

 

a mouth can only take so much, to sieve the sugar

so it doesn’t clot, a little sweetness goes a long way,

 

and oh, I’ve learned to not be shy with butter.

It smooths over everything with gold.

 

The seams are hardest to get right. You can’t

Stuff a strudel too full of fruit or else,

 

The inevitable. High heat is good for crispy edges,

Yes, but too hot and it explodes. I knead. I mix. I chop.

 

I wrap. I seal. I slice a couple holes in the top

To let this pastry breathe. I breathe, then pop it in the oven,

 

Slam shut the door, and for a moment,

forget this whole ordeal. Soon, the house

 

will smell of sweetness. Soon, I’ll pat my back,

wonder how I’ve gotten so good

 

at dealing with tough dough,

with sour cherries, and with loss.

 

But even sometimes, now, like today,

the strudel ruptures, a pool of crimson

 

Cherry juice seeps out from the seam,

The seam I’ve carefully clasped shut

 

To no avail. It couldn’t handle this today—

the heat of the oven, the failings of my flesh,

 

the moon.  And at the sight of it, I, too,

in my floured apron, in my messy kitchen,

 

burst.