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Pentimento



...each sister paints her from memory.
Hands in the paint, dressing in the drain.
We catalogue the recipes and hangs them from limbs

One pentimento canvas after another; the maternal body
like tree bark layered with ribbons of broth.
A perfect dumpling moon rises like

the edible parts of our family addictions -
a mother’s proud dimples before thinning
whisked into soup and shushed into night burl

where her weathered feet wither and rest
silent night ferns folding back onto themselves
on the forest floor.

We eat her body whole for the holiday
lick the bones clean with our salt lick tears
pour her ashes into a honeycomb jar.

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