by M.L. Hedison

I am the only one left
who knows how to make the bread

that came from Armenia
where my grandmother was born

in Eastern Anatolia, a region
the Turks swallowed whole in 1915.

The bread escaped with her
to a Beirut orphanage, emerged

from my mother’s hands
wrist-deep in flour, butter, milk

kneading with rhythmic purpose,
a folk dance of clenched fists

until the dough, no longer sticky,
was lifted from the bowl, into my hands.

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M.L. Hedison is an emerging poet based in the coastal town of Wakefield, R.I. Her work explores themes of absence, longing, and her Armenian family through lyrical verse. She continues to study with Jennifer Franklin and Wyn Cooper. She was published for the first time in 2025 where her poems appeared in ONE ART, The Tiny Journal, and Right Hand Pointing. She has work forthcoming in the Cimarron Review. This poem is a part of a manuscript in progress.