Roasting

by Marilyn Francis
The Write Idea
First Place, April 2017
Judged by R.T. Castleberry


Why, on the hottest day of the year,
would you roast a chicken?
Maybe somewhere some memory
stirred the thread of a tradition
murmuring it must be done.

Was it those apocryphal fried eggs on the pavement?
The Oh What A Scorcher headlines?
Did they remind you?

And it wasn’t even Sunday
and you’d laid the table,
cloth, crockery, and cutlery.

You’d kept the greasy pinny on
while you stirred the gravy
and sang along to the radio.

The stirring and singing
were in full swing as we arrived
all salt and sweat from the beach
to the Amazon Basin kitchen
brimming with Sunday.

Too many for your small table,
we sat elbow-close, and the children
were piglets under our feet.

‘I’ve made a roast’ you said
‘and apple pie’.
You hadn’t cooked
in years.


A tightly written, lightly humorous and completely charming slice of life. --R.T. Castleberry