February 4, 2020

I’ve pickled some things, my mother says

and lifts a mysterious jar nesting from behind a pint of whipping cream.
The bowl on the counter mounts with cubes of Honey Crisp, roast carrots 
from three nights ago, a quartet of cold mushroom ravioli, and to these 
she adds whatever’s been fermenting in the brew of that jar—onions, maybe,
or fennel, or who knows what. From here, and absent of the usual components,
the collection feels too incongruent for a salad, but my mother is unflappable, 
spears her fork purposefully into the vegetal conundrum as I fixate on the exact nature
of what could be living inside a cloudy receptacle housed in the back half of a fridge.
It is the same old story: I am afraid of what I don’t know. Above a blue ceramic dish,
my mother’s face looks nearly angelic.