"My Mother's Kitchen "

She wraps the dead cat in plastic and
paper towels and carries the lukewarm
bundle into the kitchen. It is January
and the ground outside is frozen finally
making her husband's coffin an icy prison
in his first winter underground. Her

gold slippers slide across the cobalt
floor and she opens the freezer door and
settles her eldest cat onto a high shelf
next to the icemaker. Closing

the freezer door she opens
the refrigerator and extracts
a pale green liter of Chardonnay.
She lights the oven for warmth
against the evening chill. She

is all that is left of a raucous life --
Chopin etudes played by Landowska and
crosswords and math puzzles and ashtrays
and foie gras and kidney stews and scotch
and water and midnight dinners. Her

children will make brief
appearances now, unannounced
intrusions and ceremonious pilgrimages,
each one carrying his own bundle of loss
wrapped tight against the thaw. In

Spring, before the fiddleheads unfurl,
she will bury the cat and pour herself
a glass of wine and toast her loss.