Edible Blue Ridge Fall 2022

LAST BITE

Preserve

Because I underguessed the volume of a pound of jalapenos and found in the groceries carried to my door an unexpected bounty of green the shape of comet tails, I made you pepper jelly. And because I didn’t know the difference between liquid and powdered pectin, the jelly turned to emerald wet cement so thick you could barely dig it with a spoon. It spread like the cratered edges of the moon.

It was a lost and lonely autumn. But warm rain splashed the dark windows and the asphalt with drops like thin galaxies that night. Flecks of pepper made an orrery in the clear, rubber jelly.

And in the end, it tasted alright.

Poem by Michelle Acker, Roanoke

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