When did you first start loving soup?

He considers this. “When i was around six.”

What was the first soup you fell in love with?

“Chicken noodle soup.” He says this as if it is blindingly obvious, and maybe it is.

Do you have any aspirations, soup wise?

“I have really wanted minestrone soup recently.”

What is that?

“It’s like really good.”

Oh.

“Yeah.”

me, fossil
you, archaeologist.

it was some time in the mid 90’s and
i was six,
playing with one of those little plastic phones
when she beckoned me over
to her armchair,
which i was afraid of,
in fear it would swallow me
up like it did her,
but i climbed into her lap anyway and
she smoothed my dress,
held my small hand in her wrinkled one,
closed her eyes and
then opened them
at the last second.
she went still,
looking quite disappointed in herself.

mom whispered to me more than she prayed to god
about her first job and her secondandthird,
about how they found water on mars,
about the miracle of him coming back,
about “the doctors said you were dead
but here you breathe,
and if you are possible,
then so is he.”

she carried around
a bible in her purse,
“you never know
when you might need it.”
it was buried by Winn-Dixie receipts
and i’ve still yet to see her read it.

she drank salvation from a mason jar,
“this is
the blood of christ, you see.”
but it looked
a lot like wine to me.