When I ask dad what he
had for dinner he tells me
I defrosted mom’s
chicken soup, famous
that soup in the
circle of our family,
legbone-built broth, extra
carrots and dill,
egg noodles and salt,
and I think what it
must be like for him
parsnips and celery too
to want to taste something
she cooked, and she,
still there in the freezer, her
script: Chicken Soup
10/19, scrap of
edge-on lined paper
ripped from a notebook
affixed to the tupperware with
Scotch tape. It is a brick of soup—
the freezer, full of her remnants
stuffed to the gills with his
favorites—she loved to cook,
standing in the kitchen, her
hair a-perm and in
high jeans of the season,
Scrabble queen while
baked goods cooled,
always something
on the counter. It must be
for him at dinner as it is
for me when I
put on one of her shirts.
When a sweater goes on, I
nose-dive into the scent, then
undress it from myself, fold it
back onto the shelf so it can
stay there—fragrant
memory that has a
lifespan—diluted by the
surrounding air. The freezer
basin can only hold so many
containers with her fingerprints,
some etched into frost
like fossils from some other time
so fantastical, it is
difficult to believe it was
a time on this earth, time of
my mother, time of his wife.