Glukopikron; Sweet-Bitter

by Katherine Hagopian Berry

Across the dormant field we
crawl, tapping scrawny maples,
log, branch, glove,
bonded by deep freeze

our only heat electric,
orange cords arterial,
sawdust scattering its barren
seed over clouded ice.

I am too heavy to balance
on thin crusts for long,
so we leave it to our
children who report

each hesitant drop, wait
patiently for hope
to flood taps, shower
the sap hungry earth.

There is sugar enough to test
our faith in loss, black cauldron,
the pan I bought, decades ago,
to heat my feast for one.

The old spell was to bury
your worst fears alive:
that steam bleeding
down the kitchen window

has wedged a hole in things
irreversible.  That this time
it will not become
easier to breathe.

That my body won’t turn
to your body in the small bed.
Instead we tally production
golden in mason jars,

two, four, six, nineteen twenty,
How much, enough for next winter,
How much, enough for the end
of the world?