[Critique Group 1] Sally's November submission

[sanford.rosenthal at comcast.net]

While bread dough rises to the top

of old enamel bowls in the warmth

of a spartan farmhouse kitchen,

Great-Aunt Ivy and I, hands in motion,

perched on a worn wooden bench, shell peas 

picked early that morning for supper.

Taking to the familiar task with muscle memory,

her gnarled hands speed in synchronized movement

as my five-year-old fingers lag behind.

Her basin filled with a mountain of peas,

Ivy lavishes praise born of love 

on the tiny pile scarcely covering my pan's bottom.

 

Decades later, in an apartment's galley kitchen,

the grown child now older than the Ivy  

held in that long-ago memory

shakes frozen peas into a pot of soup

and cuts a slice from store-bought bread

but remembers to add a pinch of Ivy's love.

 
By Sally Rosenthal

 

 

  

 

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