Dear magic pie lady,

I was driving west on Waterloo when you appeared on the roadside at your card table with a sign reading 'Homemade Pies.' Six little pies rowed neatly around your table's center. They were $2.99 each which seemed funny in a 'you are super adorable!' way. As you approached me the sun lit your face, and the dark cropped hair curling around your head. The look in your eyes was incredible-- how I imagine a seasoned lioness basking at her day's end might, or a tree-covered autumn hill seen past a blazing valley. Gorgeous, glowingly warm, all at once intimate and impenetrable.

I said 'What kind of pie is it?', and you responded 'Sweet potato.'

I said I would like three, please.

Woman, it felt like you put a balm on my heart. Like honey into hot tea. Shocking. It felt religious. A gift of beautiful love seen in the flesh. Thank you.

Your balm wears away, but today it was there again in a deer rustling along the edge of my woods, a bird lit in flight, the same bird on a tree branch, the strange gorgeous rust of fall's decay brightly lit with gilded leaves.

Sweet potato.

That's all she said.

Thanks again for the pie.

Love,

The D.L.