Absent

a Mother's Day poem to the kitchen whisperers, long gone, who mothered me

image source: Olivia Strauss, Unsplash

Absent

A canister of flour on the counter
but no rolling pin on the table. No pillowy

loaves of bread dough rising under tea towels.
No yeasty scent lauding the kitchen.

The kitchen, absent the simmer of sustenance.
Butter no longer softens in the cut glass dish.

Not a freckle of sugar, not even the pie plate
that once held heaps of cinnamon-soaked apples.

Apples no longer hang heavy from the tree
that blossomed faithfully, even in the scorch

of summer. Olive oil rancid. Cast-iron skillet rusty
from disuse. Sizzle, a sound now limited to the ear

of memory, which is waning. Waning, too, the pulse
of heat, a fire now ash. Even the pilot light minus

its flicker. The mice have eaten any crumbs
that may have escaped a slice of toast.

Toast to the gatherings that once lit this space.
Sunday dinners that began at two and stretched

into sunset, clink of glasses holding splashes
of dandelion wine that still burns my lips.