A Lunch to Remember

I sit by the front window at noon

eating homemade chicken noodle soup

with a buttered hard roll.

I take a bite, the butter oozing out the sides

dripping in the steamy broth.

I watch as the butter melts, forming an oil slick

on the surface, interrupting the steam.

Dipping the roll into the soup

I think of my mother

and how she loved buttered rolls

fresh from the bakery – no prepackaged day old bits for her!

She especially like this, a hot soup

that she could dunk the roll, just enough

to moisten but not soak

leaning carefully over the bowl to catch the drips.

She would reminisce of her trips

to New York to eat lunch with her brother

who worked in mid-town.

“Oh, the sandwiches!” she exclaimed as

she dabbed her ruby colored lips with the cloth napkin.

“Sliced so thin you could see right through

the corned beef, then piled so high it was had to take a bite!”

Sitting back in her chair she would place the napkin back in her lap and sigh,

“What great times,” her voice trailing off as she looked out the window.

I miss her most of all in moments like this.

I want to tell her that Carnegie’s has closed

That her brother, eight years younger, fell. Again.

They have put him in a skilled nursing facility

far from his home, far from his mid-town, far from his wife’s grave

that he would visit every Sunday after her death, just to talk.

He sits, looking out the window waiting for his next meal.

Sometimes when I am in the kitchen cooking, I hear my mother’s laugh

If I turn slowly, I see a faint wisp move.

Was it just steam rising, then drifting off, or ?

I stare out the window, then at the empty chair.

I take another spoonful of soup and whisper to no one,

“I miss you, mom. They were great times, indeed”.