About My Mother

Soup

As the blade slices
through the onion’s pungency
I see my Mothers hands,
long burnt
in the furnace flames,
deftly slicing
and chopping
for the soup pot.
I peel a layer
of memory
it stings as I recall
the hole in her sock
the day she died
where her nail
ignoring beckoning
death
still grew.
I jammed my finger
in the fraying edge
to stop her soul leaving,
but it slithered past
anyhow
bearing her last breath.
It was the last part of her
I ever touched,
it was her last stock pot
and now
I just cook up memories.