THE SMALLER THE PIE PLATE THE BETTER
That’s poetry, but still true in my kitchen.
The 9-inch pie plate is where I live.
Guys like me were not meant to build
around the 10-inch plate
with its promise of abundance.
And this piece of advice:
There’s always one pie plate
from our mothers
that never goes home
with guests. It never holds
a pie you’re taking to a memorial
or wedding. It doesn’t
leave the house.
My wife watches..
Her eyes are on me. She
doesn’t love me enough
to trust me with this pie plate.
This is the way things are--
Don’t drop it, I say to myself
bringing it out from the cupboard.
The 9-inch pie plate
offers the world where bees
thrive and birds feed.
The gleaned apple orchard itself
wants these glass plates.
They can hold the fruit.
They’re hardy, inexpensive,
simple glass plates,
heat-resistant, challenging
you to produce sabor
from the butter crust--challenging
your skills of pinch, fold, flute.
The 9-inch plate makes it easier,
forgives your arthritic fingers.
It binds top and bottom.
And then, there are smaller
pie plates too. Like pie plates
for children. These small ones
take left-over filling, They’re cute.
Some of the children’s ware
can produce pies cut into 8
one-bite pieces.
They take me to that happy place
where no one looks over shoulders,
and only person’s allowed in the kitchen.
The beloved wants the child’s plate,
with Bambi and roses hiding
under the butter crust.
Coming from the oven,
this pie plate’s unassuming.
This pie, though, brushed
with egg wash, sprinkled
with turbinado sugar, arrives
coarse and sparkling.
Jim Bodeen
13 November 2026
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