Never the Right Recipe        

                                                                       

by Andrena Zawinski

The last time I saw her she had just stopped

wearing black, so very many years after the death

of her young husband. Stirring spaghetti sauce,

bubbling up and splashing onto her flowered mumu,

she would sing childhood Sicilian songs, fingering

the red ribbon pinned to her bra strap, bright gold

cornicello dangling from her neck––double protection

from malocchio.  

Those days she would say you and I were young

and dumb with big ideas, tipsy on Dago Red

from backyard Concords she let us taste, sparking spats 

around her Sunday kitchen table on our tarty ways,

trying to look older than our seventeen years

in false eyelashes and teased-up bleached-out hair,

delivering our threats to run off to New York City

in short skirts on platform heels looking for more

than what we had, she making behind her back

a mano cornuto.

Today I thought I found the right recipe

for her falagones, sliced the potatoes and onions

paper-thin, stuffed them inside folded dough,

but too sparse, too dry, missing something.

And now you have told me she can no longer speak,

can barely navigate from chair to bed, shouldering

the curse of having her wits mixed up by the Parkinsons

no ribbon, gold, or hand sign can ward off.

If I could I would tell her about how I have nearly

perfected her bolognese with sausage and beef,

how close it is in color and taste, but never as good as hers.

I would tell her that despite the many passing years,

we are still young and dumb––that even as we now

swirl, sniff, sip our Chianti, nibble our garlic-lemon

bruschetta in small plate fusion tapas bars,

we are still picky eaters struggling to be satisfied

with what we have.

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"Never the Right Recipe" was first published Paterson Literary Review #45 (Paterson, NJ).

More about Andrena Zawinski at https://andrenazawinski.wordpress.com.