November 22, 2016

liver and gin

Our visits came long after her glory days in the kitchen.
Instead, quiet afternoons of Scrabble and warm milk and dusty
caramel squares, the wilted smell of old perfume rising from her stiff
living room couch. Years after she died, my grandfather sent a stack
of index cards of recipes, the handwriting shockingly illegible and mostly
in German, a collision of dishes from the country she left and the one
that took her in. I imagined the wet slap of liver on the counter, the pot
on a roiling boil, a staunch conviction and residue fear competing in the gut,
her own boys growing up too fast. Which is why I wasn't so surprised
about the gin.