Phone Call: Grams, On Her Ex-Fiancé
He’d show to work an hour late. Never have any money to go out and go anywhere. I always had to pay. I was workin’ at Bennet’s, I think I started in September and Bill started in November and there was an old carpenter there, and he— I guess Bill, must’ve had his eye on me, and the old carpenter was encouraging him, and Bill said, no, she’s engaged. I don’t want to break up an engagement. One night, I’d given my boyfriend the ring back. I went to work the next morning and the old carpenter seen me without a ring and he run and told Bill, and Bill come over that night, just to see me. Well as it was, I was takin’ my Station Wagon to the garage, and on the corner of Genessee and South Newstead, he was comin’ up to see me and I was goin’ the other way with the wagon. So he followed me over and picked me up, ‘cause I left the car there. And we were just ridin’ around the first night. But then, I think the second night, he asked me if I would move to West Virginia, and I told him yes— but I had no intentions of movin’ to West Virginia. So that was November, we got engaged for New Year’s, and in June, we got married. Yeah, we’ve had a good life. We’ve had our battles. But we all do. A lot of em’ were over the kids. You know, Darla was a little shit. And he was hard on Ronnie. They say you’re always hardest on the first one. I mean for instance, if they were out, snowmobiling, and Ronnie was s’posed to be home by twelve and wasn’t, Papa was up. Then I’d have to get up and intervene. And Jackie was always the favorite, I don’t know why. But she’s still his favorite, and he’s her favorite. So. It’ll be sixty-eight years? Or sixty-nine? We were married in ‘55… this year will be sixty-nine. If we live that long. You never know.
The Biscuit Method
Some separate whites from yolks using the shell it falls from
I use my fingers, spread open and curled so yolk slips by
Eyes dry-tired like someone sieved tears from whites
It’s morning, hours before coffee. Tears welling like ice melting
I cut chunks of butter into flour, coating each frozen cube
Folding flour into fat forms flake, “the biscuit method” in baking
A mother knows her daughter by face
Red streaks give me away when she asks, were you crying?
Pinching crust thumb-to-forefinger against a bent knuckle,
I think, maybe it’s the medicine
The pie crust collapses
I didn’t let it rest, didn’t give it time, wasted mine
Walking past, Mom squeezes my shoulder, a reminder
She is here. But her smile too is a smudge, hardening in concrete
I could buy pie weights. Add stability
I am not sturdy, but still a foundation
It’s just a pie, start over. Get the flour back out
From the cupboard, the oven’s still preheated
Maybe it’s the dosage
When the crusts cool, I lift each disc from plate
Squeezing one in each hand ‘till they crumble
I could use them to top a berry parfait
One doctor tears a script, phones in a new med
I eat the crust pieces with a bowl of peaches
Like pie, deconstructed

From Buffalo, NY, Charleigh Triaga is now based in NY, NY. She writes “homestyle poetry” about domesticity and her multigenerational family. Her work explores the human body and pain processes. She received her MFA from Queens College in May 2024.
Image: Bread Ahead, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons