The Boiling Point for Jam

by Lynda Tavakoli

 
She is making jam in the tiny kitchen,
aproned up, thumb-worn spoon in hand,
fingertips browned like nicotine
from plums she’d stoned an hour before.
 
Through the window she watches him work,
his naked back a tease of muscle-bulk
as axe splits wood, big hands tender on the shaft
with every shlurp of the blade’s release.
 
She adds sugar to the softened fruit,
stirs until its coarseness fuses the pulp.
Then she waits. Outside the sky is bruised with cloud,
the day punished for its obdurate cheerfulness.
 
He stiffens then, minding something beyond her reach,
and in his stillness she finds the man she knew
who measured time with shrugs and rinsed his days
with promises she could not keep.
 
Now there is only her raw womb,
the haemorrhage of empty-bellied days
stretching behind her like a vacant sky
and the sweet spit of fruit pricking at her skin.
 
Yet there is peace in the ordinary:
the boiling point for jam, the quiet release of a latch,
the skirting of his arms about her waist,
the hope that love would always be enough.   


* * * * *

"The Boiling Point for Jam" is the title poem of Lynda Tavakoli's debut poetry collection The Boiling Point for Jam.

Lynda Tavakoli lives in County Down, Northern Ireland, where over the years she has facilitated both adult creative writing classes and been a tutor for the Seamus Heaney Award for schools. She is a professional member of The Irish Writers Centre and has been nominated for Best of the Net Awards and the Pushcart Prize (2024). Lynda’s debut poetry collection, The Boiling Point for Jam (Arlen House), has received wide acclaim for its raw honesty and authenticity. She is presently working on her second collection.