She bakes chocolate chip cookies
in a communist oven, the dial broken,
the temperature unsure, but they come out
fine, the sugar crystals bending
the kitchen light like prisms

She bakes only in the evening.

So her kitchen light beckons
to the passersby with their Żabka bags
and poorly rolled cigarettes, embered ends
twinkling in brief dialogue with her window.

Cookies on a plate, stacked high
and too soon, bend acrobatically,
wanting contact with the smooth of the oak, the soft
of the flour that’s spilt on the table.

She wipes up the flour,
restacks the cookies with a washed
and paper-dried hand. She notes the time,
that it’s getting late, and closes the blind.

Outside, someone stamps out the glow
of a cigarette on the sidewalk.