These hands, if not Gods - Nathalie Diaz

Haven't they moved like rivers--
like Glory, like light--
over the seven days of your body?
And wasn't that good?
Them at your hips--
isn't this what God felt when he pressed together
the first Beloved: Everything.
Fever. Vapor. Atman. Pulsus. Finally,
a sin worth hurting for. Finally, a sweet, a
You are mine.
It is hard not to have faith in this:
from the blue-brown clay of night
these two potters crushed and smoothed you
into being--grind, then curve--built your form up--
atlas of bone, fields of muscle,
one breast a fig tree, the other a nightingale,
both Morning and Evening.
O, the beautiful making they do--
of trigger and carve, suffering and stars--
Aren't they, too, the dark carpenters
of your small church? Have they not burned
on the altar of your belly, eaten the bread
of your thighs, broke you to wine, to ichor,
to nectareous feast?
Haven't they riveted your wrists, haven't they
had you at your knees?
And when these hands touched your throat,
showed you how to take the apple and the rib,
how to slip a thumb into your mouth and taste it all,
didn't you sing out their ninety-nine names--
Zahir, Aleph, Hands-time-seven,
Sphinx, Leonids, locomotura,
Rubidium, August, and September--
And when you cried out, O, Prometheans,
didn't they bring fire?
These hands, if not gods, then why
when you have come to me, and I have returned you
to that from which you came--bright mud, mineral-salt--
why then do you whisper O, my Hecatonchire. My Centimani.
My hundred-handed one?

Sweet autumn vegetable roast with apples

This evening I had planned to make the autumn vegetable roast from easy vegetarian one-pot, but I had some white wine and a craving for Tarragon Chicken Tray Bake* - but neither tarragon nor chicken. A bit of googling, the vague process outline from In the Kitchen's spicy vegetable bake, and this happened:

( Dietary and accessibility notes )

( Ingredients and method )

This works perfectly well as a one-pot meal. If I were serving it at a dinner party, though, I would accompany it with something... I'm thinking of my mother's cold rice and apple salad, which doesn't seem to be duplicated online but is not entirely unlike this rice salad here. Chronic meat-eaters might find baked vegetables like this a good accompaniment to roast chicken (stuff with sliced apples? Or is that overkill on the apples... lemon might counter-balance the sweetness nicely).

~

* kayloulee, look: NO EGREGIOUS ADJECTIVES. I have the original still, and it's very restrained in the adjective department.
** I haven't worked out the ideal temperature / time ratio. An hour was nooot quite enough at 180 degrees. Either up the temperature or extend the time! I have this problem with the spicy vegetable bake, too.