A Kitchen Memory

 There are so many memories I have of my mother  in this kitchen. I remember her standing  there frying bacon, stirring potato soup, heating up Campbell's soup, putting an apple pie in the oven, and always cleaning the drip pans under the burners when she was done. 

A Kitchen Memory

My mother is peeling an apple over the sink,
her two deft hands effortless and intent.
The skin comes away in the shape of a corkscrew,
red and white by turns, with a shimmer of rose
where the blade in its turn cuts close: a blush,
called out of hiding like a second skin.
Now the apple fattens in her hand;
the last scrap of parings falls away;
and she halves and sections the white grainy meat,
picks up another apple, brushes back
the dark hair at her temple with the knife hand.
The only sound is the fan stirring the heat.
- Roy Scheele

The last line of this poem didn't happen in our kitchen. Mom didn't have a fan stirring the heat. She just baked, fried, and scrambled no matter how hot the temperature  was.  Every single time.