NANA

The sun has set,

 and the day’s dishes washed and dried.

Supper was simple but filling.

A recipe learned with my grandmother as my guide.

It been so long since she passed away,

Yet sometimes it seems

Like it was only yesterday.

The great granddaughter

She bounced on her knee,

Is a grandmother herself

At age forty-three.

I’ve given her the lessons

Passed down my Nana

To me they are

Her form of manna.

She used her kitchen skill

To feed a family of eleven

Because her oldest child

Taken to heaven

Before my mother and her

Siblings were born.

Nana told me about Frankie

No so I could mourn

But so I would remember

That motherhood sometimes

Came with high cost,

Not just in money

But in what could be lost.

©2016 Bobbi Ann Duffy