Upon finding an old cemetery
Some of these
stones are small
and unmarked—
it must have been
a family plot—yet
I don’t know where
the story comes from,
where it started,
whether with water,
or fire, or steam
that splashed
her in the face when
she ran the faucet
over the mouth
of a frying pan.
Homemade sausage
and onion. Dinner
for a household
of eight. And before
it even began, before
anyone could lift
fork to teeth, one
of the youngest
cries he does not
like onions—
they burn his tongue,
and his tummy hurts
after he eats them.
They make him
feel all kinds of ways
sick children describe
better than this,
and then, I think,
the father—
he must have turned
hot in the face,
pounded a thick fist
on the table planks,
threatened to take out
the belt, send the child
to the woodshed. So
in the story, the mother
tells the boy to pick
the onions out,
put them on a napkin
and she will eat them
instead, because wasting
is selfish and sinful,
and how many people
in a country no one
has ever heard of
would appreciate
the food they’d been given?
In ensuing silence,
she cannot speak
to the actual weakness,
tell him how everyone
is afraid to be sick,
everyone scared
of starvation
and their own
intermittent lives,
each guarding survival
in whatever method
they learn, hoping to
live beyond themselves.
She probably would have
liked to ward off
the suffering, keep it
all to herself. Protect
them and hold them.
Love them in whatever
way she could.
That’s what I think
she was doing.
Saving them from
mortality. Preventing
them from wasting away.
Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt, copyright May 28, 2024, all rights reserved
Posted in Uncategorized
