​My Mother and Food


​She loved the burned parts, crusts, the sauce
gone to sludge at the bottom of the pan, bacon
curled in on itself, still crackling as she brought it
to her mouth, blew away the smoke, “Nice” she’d say,
the egg white rimmed in black lace, or forking up
the wrinkled butt of the roast, chewing the tough meat
to a mush between her false teeth. She served herself
what we didn’t want, never threw anything out, scraped
the edge of the pan with a spoon where the white cake
had baked to the color and texture of dry dirt. As for us,
she’d hand out the baby oil before we left in our bikinis
to lay our bodies like loaves of bread in the retort of the sun.
When we returned, hours later, burnt to a crisp, she’d
retrieve the Jergen’s Lotion she kept in the fridge, smear
our shoulders and backs, the angry red creases behind
our knees, then sat down and waited for us to turn brown. 

-first published in Midway Journal