Acquired

My mother ate headcheese.
Sliced thin, doused in vinegar,
pale pink with gelatinous patches, 
large wobbly cells
like overgrown thoughts —
I only half thought 
it was pared from inside of a head 
I only half wondered whose.

Sandra Ahrens is a graduate of the Creative Writing Program at UW-Milwaukee. Her work has appeared most recently in Verse Virtual, The Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar and Barstow and Grand. After working as a social worker, teacher, nonprofit trainer and advocate, Sandra is now retired. She lives in Eau Claire.