In My Mother's Kitchen

Past counters strewn with trivets of my childhood,

barefoot across the cool ceramic floor,

I step from one island

to the next --

on area rugs we should remove, they say,

lest she trip.

Through the dark, 4:23

glows red from the clock on the stove.

I still smell the soup we made

for last night's supper,

full of vegetables we chopped together,

she helping against my protest

just an hour after coming home.

Leaning against the kitchen door,

I look through the panes

at bare trees against a blush of retreating snow cloud,

and past the porch, the full moon,

a luminous will-o'-the-wisp,

casts a foggy glow

through mesh of branch.

Still on patrol,

I listen

to my mother's sleeping breath,

six nights past bypass,

as she dreams once again in her own home.

   ~Kate Lydon Varley