Childhood Delights

Childhood Delights

by Clayre Benzadon

Mostly beige, this day,

this kitchen / view. Scent

of garlic and sauteed onions,

my mother, me on a stool,

her teaching me how to measure

chocolate chips into a cup.

Mom is cooking

pescado cocho, paprika

spice oiling the pan

a deep yellow-orange,

for the Sabbath. White

cupboard, clear glass

jars, everything so fragile,

easy to break. Walking

into childhood is

like stepping onto

yolk; surprise eggy,

pancakes, a slippery

drench of syrup

lining the mouth,

drawing a smooth s-

mile.

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Clayre Benzadón (she / they) is a queer (bi /pan) Sephardic (Mizrahi)-Askhenazi poet, educator (adjunct professor) and activist. Her chapbook, Liminal Zenith, was published by SurVision Books in 2019. Her manuscript, Moon as Salted Lemon was recently named an honorable mention for Miami Book Fair's 2025 Emerging Writer's Fellowship and was chosen as a winner for Driftwood Press's Editor's Pick Poetry Prize . Find more about her here:https://www.clayrebenzadon.com