PIE

Lacking my mother's recipe for apple pie

I follow my mother-in-law's, written out

In her clear running print hand on two cards

Taped together and showing the marks 

Of cinnamon and brown sugar, of lemon juice

And tart apples. My mother always 

Used greening apples if she could find them

And rolled the dough with a rolling pin

That had been her step-grandmother’s 

It was made of some densegrained wood

With handles that remembered their every user.

That pin probably could have made a pie

By itself. Not so well as my mother, mind you,

But pretty well. Most likely it wouldn't remember 

To stop mid-way and give me apple cores 

Coated with sugar brown and white and cinnamon.