Cooking for my Daughter

Like her ancestral Bastet*,

the cat’s head barely moves
as he takes in the scene of me
mixing yeast and water, flour and salt.

This dough is for pizza,
a family staple that goes back
before my daughter’s birth,
a time I remember as if it were only a story
and of course, she does not remember at all.

She’s coming for lunch in a few hours.
This evolution in our lives
is like the day after the discovery of the wheel,
or the first summer after the domestication of wheat:
everything is different, but we’re not quite sure
what it all means just yet.

Later I punch down the risen dough
and roll it out.
I paint the surface with olive oil
then spread tomato sauce and cheese –
New World innovations
covering over Old.

* Bastet or Bast (Ancient Egyptian: bꜣstjt "She of the Ointment Jar", Coptic: Ⲟⲩⲃⲁⲥⲧⲉ[2] /ubaste/) was a goddess of ancient Egyptian religion, worshiped as early as the Second Dynasty (2890 BCE). Her name also is rendered as B'sst, Baast, Ubaste, and Baset.[3] In ancient Greek religion, she was known as Ailuros (Koinē Greek: αἴλουρος "cat").
Bastet was worshipped in Bubastis in Lower Egypt, originally as a lioness goddess, a role shared by other deities such as Sekhmet. Eventually Bastet and Sekhmet were characterized as two aspects of the same goddess, with Sekhmet representing the powerful warrior and protector aspect and Bastet, who increasingly was depicted as a cat, representing a gentler aspect.