You baked round cookies called biscochitos / small shortbread circles made with lard and anise / rolled in cinnamon and sugar / pressed with fork tines / The warm, sweet aroma filled your tiny yellow kitchen / wafting up the stairs through the vents When you moved in with us / I wasn’t sure of you / You didn’t talk much / and you sat quietly with a rosary most of the time / eyes closed / fingers moving / Long before you lived with us / after Grandpa died / you’d moved from the ranch to Albuquerque / to live with your sister / Mom told us you washed vestments and clothes for the priests in the parish / What kind of job is that I wondered / as a nine year old / I used to shudder at the wooden rosary beads in your fingers and the wooden crosses on the walls / but now that I am older / I find myself turning a smooth black buckeye in my hands / over and over / eyes closed / praying for something / conjuring the cinnamon scent of biscochitos
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Laura Belin: Iowa Politics with Laura Belin, Windsor Heights
Doug Burns: The Iowa Mercury, Carroll
Dave Busiek: Dave Busiek on Media, Des Moines
Art Cullen: Art Cullen’s Notebook, Storm Lake
Suzanna de Baca Dispatches from the Heartland, Huxley
Debra Engle: A Whole New World, Madison County
Julie Gammack: Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck, Des Moines and Okoboji
Joe Geha: Fern and Joe, Ames
Jody Gifford: Benign Inspiration, West Des Moines
Nik Heftman, The Seven Times, Los Angeles and Iowa
Beth Hoffman: In the Dirt, Lovilla
Dana James: New Black Iowa, Des Moines
Pat Kinney: View from Cedar Valley, Waterloo
Fern Kupfer: Fern and Joe, Ames
Robert Leonard: Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture, Bussey
Tar Macias: Hola Iowa, Iowa
Kurt Meyer, Showing Up, St. Ansgar
Kyle Munson, Kyle Munson’s Main Street, Des Moines
Jane Nguyen, The Asian Iowan, West Des Moines
John Naughton: My Life, in Color, Des Moines
Chuck Offenburger: Iowa Boy Chuck Offenburger, Jefferson and Des Moines
Barry Piatt: Piatt on Politics: Behind the Curtains, Washington, D.C.
Macey Spensley, The Midwest Creative, Davenport and Des Moines
Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Buggy Land, Kalona
Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Emerging Voices, Kalona
Cheryl Tevis: Unfinished Business, Boone County
Ed Tibbetts: Along the Mississippi, Davenport
Teresa Zilk: Talking Good, Des Moines
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