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Pandemic Day 28, Dad Eats Leftovers

Emily Hyland Poetry

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.



About Emily Hyland
Emily Hyland’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in armarolla, Belle Ombre, The Brooklyn Review, Mount Hope Magazine, Neologism Poetry Journal, Sixfold, Palette Poetry, The Virginia Normal, and Stretching Panties. A restauranteur and English professor from New York City, she received her MFA in poetry and her MA in English education from Brooklyn College. Her cookbook, Emily: The Cookbook, was published by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, in 2018. She is a member of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers and studies writing with Mirabai Starr at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. Emily is the cofounder of the national restaurant groups Pizza Loves Emily and Emmy Squared Pizza.

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