"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> Frigg | Spring/Summer 2023 | Short Crust | Robert Beveridge
artwork for Robert Beveridge's poem Short Crust

Short Crust
Robert Beveridge

You pick up the mezzaluna, cut
butter into flour, do not understand
the consistency until you realize
someone has already added
the milk. Another pie ruined—
apple, boysenberry, sweet potato.
You bite back a scream, jerk
upright, awake in the NICU.
A plurality of respirators,
so common the sound is perfect
Dolby. You ponder how ingredients
must be added in the proper
order, processed by recipe.
You extend your index finger,
feel that fragile hand grasp it.



Robert Beveridge’s Comments

I was at the first reading I ever went to in Akron (where I now live); this is back in … September? maybe August? … 2016. It was being held at Sweet Mary’s, a local bakery (if you’re a baked goods fan, you really need to go there if you’re ever in the area), so pastry was already on my mind. The beeping of a ready oven snapped these two incredibly disparate images together in my head. (Also, a great excuse for a shameless name-drop—that was the first night I met Noor Hindi, who was one of the readers that evening.)

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Frigg: A Magazine of Fiction and Poetry | Issue 61 | Spring/Summer 2023