Knadle

For Dee McSorley

My grandmother wears a pink apron and makes dumplings. They’re not dumplings, they’re knadles. No one knows why she’s making knadles. She’s covered in flour. Potato skin sticks to the soles of her feet. She only moves to knead, knead flour into more potato, more potato into flour. She boils them and they rise to the surface like soft wrinkled creatures of the deep deep ocean. She puts her hand in the pot and pulls them out one by one. She puts her hand deeper into the pot and pulls out the ribs of a small animal. She puts her whole body in the pot and disappears. We eat at someone else’s kitchen table. We eat my grandmother’s knadles. We put down our knives and forks and walk outside. The wind pulls the leaves on the trees towards us like outstretched hands.