My mother still cooks Hard Luck
casserole in the big black cast-iron skillet,
a wedding present from 1949, though
I can’t smell the hamburger and onion
frying over the phone, long distance.

Today she cooks for her two daughters-in-law
carrying the covered dishes into their houses,
where their new babies are crying or sleeping
and her sons, confused by fatherhood,
sit at their kitchen tables,
happy, dazed, starving.

In my mother’s kitchen,
though we are tall and important now,
we are still the children we were
complaining about Hard Luck, again
but eating it anyway
because we are hungry,
because it fills us up,
because it tastes like love,
and love wears many disguises.

Elizabeth first came to Wisconsin as a newlywed, which was 37 years ago! In the meantime, she’s taught adult education, including ESL, GED prep, Communication, and creative writing, while raising three kids, now adults. She’s currently working on compiling her poetry and writing children’s books.