remembering to make potato soup by cassidy trudeau

​Nanny’s Georgia peach kitchen          Fog the same consistency
as one cup of half-and-half       My sweat congealing
in the valleys of my palms      Nanny showing me to slice onions
from front to back       Listening to boiling potatoes hiss
Sprinkling basil leaves onto lily pads of fat       Measuring off ham
into streamers of pink and white marble         Adding lots of cheddar
Locking it into tupperware       Carrying it home to my sick mother
Feeding her the medicine of her own childhood          Remembering
the recipe for my own children

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Cassidy Trudeau, a queer writer from a small southern town, currently attends Hollins University for creative writing. Her works have been published in the magazines Élan, The Write Place at the Write Time, and Gravel. Find her on Twitter @lesbianrhett.