I’ll Always Remember Us
washing dishes in the big two-sink white enamel stand-alone by the fridge, me washing in the hard water that wouldn't allow sufficient suds, you rinsing, then drying with dingy, blue-striped towel or thin yellowed cheesecloth that didn't do much to remove the wet from the flowered plates and fruit jars making our fine dining. The water got dirty fast and was never hot enough to remove the grease sticking to bowls like lichen on dead wood. And the pots and pans with fatback residue or recycled lard, well, we just as well might have chanted abracadabra. With a final flourish of the rag before hanging it to dry on faucet's crooked neck, we shelve the dishes behind Mama's floral flour sack curtain. Sisters. On kitchen duty. Stacking memories for tomorrow when the waters go cloudy and gray. Published Verse-Virtual, Jan. 2026; Photo Unsplash, Tracey Hocking