@martha4 that’s a life after smashing pumpkins
The Pan Haiku Review issue 4, December 2024
4 apples
2 tbl cinnamon
80g butter
70g flour
70g oats
40g sugar
(4 portions)
Martha lives right on the periphery of the city. The street in which her house is situated is not that different from other streets, but she says it is, she says in MY street. When Martha goes to the bakery round the corner, she sees the pastries on display, I used to buy them for my children, because. No time, no time. Martha lives on the outskirts of the city and knows her routes and routines by heart.
She takes four apples and weighs them in her hand, looking for bruises, wormholes.
She is not old. Of course, that depends on who’s the judge. I don’t know if Martha really exists, or the street, but I’m sure there are others like Martha. And there are streets just like this one.
It’s okay to make your crumble first and slice the apples afterwards. It is okay. No matter how you start, it will taste okay. Apples react with the air, turn brown, so. Have a bit of lemon juice at hand, if you want to prevent that. Sometimes things need to be treated immediately to keep them from reacting irreversibly.
how many houses
build a hometown
it’s a struggle
so she helps the child bend
almost all its fingers down
Martha learnt the best thing is to persevere and not touch the food supplies. That means not answering the phone when you’re in a rush, or refusing to daydream about what you want to do, sometimes. By the time you actually get to it, you’re too exhausted. It’s all irrelevant. You haven’t dreamt about it.
She will listen to the answering machine later. Later.
These apples are juicy, not mealy. There is a decision to be made, should she keep the skin or remove it? She opts for the latter and watches the peel spiral grow. She still tries to make one very long strip of apple peel, as if this might turn it into a day of Records & Celebrations. As if a peel is more than just a peel. And it is.
Doing things for yourself can be a challenge, can’t it. Like a wing feather made of iron. Once Martha went upstairs to get a book from the shelf and ended up on the sofa without it, from where she didn’t get up again until late afternoon. Sometimes she watches her will melt on the stove. It’s good enough as it is (is it?). In summer she hangs it up to air out, in winter it lies carelessly in a small mountain of folds in front of the radiator. Martha no longer knows what it’s like to know what she hungers for.
winging the unwinged the
Hachiko
Crumble can be made with oats, too. There are many options. It feels weird crumbling up the butter, sugar and other dry ingredients with your fingers and it will stick at first. The texture is all over the place. Keep going.
She calls herself weak, weak. She dips her finger in the batter. She suspects that others say the same about her.
She made a list this morning, and she swiftly ticked off shopping, picking up a prescription, and the library. She strokes her arms and looks at her reflection in the window. The other day, someone she hadn’t seen for a long time said (when greeting her) you’ve put on quite a bit of weight and you look just like your mother. She just smiled. Later, when she drove home to the edge of town, she clutched the steering wheel. They shouldn’t have commented on my body. They shouldn’t have told me what I don’t want to be reminded of. And I didn’t think for one moment of commenting on THEIR appearance. What is wrong with them? What is wrong with me? She was worth a half-baked comment, and it tasted chunky, strange.
it’s so important
to eat everything
that’s on the plate
to walk through the umpteenth room
in the museum complex
She’s good at not committing. It feels like a lie, all the time.
When you put it into the oven, take care to set an alarm. You want apple crumble, you don’t want coal.
It smells, the cinnamon is prominent. She opens the window. When she looks out, she can see, a lot. Someone yelling at their children, children riding their bikes in a slalom to the end of the street and back. Women with their dogs. People with their smartphones. Squirrels, rubbish bins, delivery vans, guitar chords, a children’s TV programme, skies in all kinds of shades of blue, white and grey, framed by a landscape of rooftops. Condensation trails. It feels like Berlin, it’s not. Everything is a story. Martha has apple trees, but she can’t climb very high up the ladder, she’s afraid of heights.
mixing it all up the vessel the ingredients hi jack
Apple crumble is comfort food, but when you don’t like apples or are allergic, you can replace them with your favourite fruit. Maybe not bananas. They just get very, very brown and that doesn’t look very nice. Sometimes looks do count. When all is eaten, it’s time to bake another apple crumble to bridge the fact that the first is already gone.
da capo
a string
snaps
The kids have grown up fast. But that’s not true. Time is a dot on a swinging rope. What is true is she grieves and doesn’t tell anyone. What is true is she cannot forget she dies every day. She lives every day. That is life?
At that point, the kitchen doesn’t look very clean. Put everything into the dishwasher.
(Clean in 5-minute chunks, followed by short breaks. Dance while you clean. Put on your favourite podcast. If you sit down, you won’t do it. If you need to sit down, prioritise it, and that’s okay. Dirty dishes are just that: dirty dishes.)
Martha thinks, a lot. She’s human, a real human. Martha is still trying to figure stuff out. Discarded books on the floor. The colour selection cards for a new wall colour in the bedroom. Cobwebs. She says to herself I don’t want to label myself. But who will, in case? Martha is quite strong. Martha is often clueless.
new weather strip no warmth escapes
Enjoy your apple crumble with ice cream. Better still, savour what you’ve just created.
I don’t know if Martha really exists, or the street, but there are many others like Martha, for sure.
pi & anne 