[audioplayer file=”https://admin.rattle.com/audio/DuthieSubstance.mp3″]
I blame the malevolent fairy
tales where the princess
always presents a creamy complexion—
porcelain, silk, satin, dewy
as unblemished petals—bah.
And fie on fathoming witches through
the coarse-and-homely-as-cartons pelts
of women earning their crow’s feet,
scaring thieves away without straw men.
The muscle and mastery needed to stir
sludge into sustenance, and then to scrub
the kettle clean enough for brewing cures—
why is it when boys play with powerful
powders and brines, it’s honored as chemistry
rather than cooed at as cookery
or cursed as conjuring? This is not
the province of unformed chicks.
Let me show you
a shape of a happy ending:
not the visage of a white washed egg
but the graying angles and curves
of a tested cradle,
the invisible hands
that clean up whatever’s after.