GRIEF Poem: Salty Chicken Soup, by Sauci Bosner

She rolled the wooden cane
towards the open doorway,
down a narrow hall.
She squeezed her
bunioned toes
into her new orthopedic shoes,
still a bit too tight.
Bertie leaned down.
She could not pull the sock
with her swollen fingers.

Last night’s Shabbos chicken soup
had no backbone or taste.
Too much salt. Tears of fear.
Rotating circles of oil whirling
between dill and parsley tails,
shifting days and seasons into
80 years and one week.
Time has moved on.
Mama’s chicken soups
lingered on her tongue.
Memory.
That is all she has left.

Shuffling behind her walker,
Bertie shifted her weight,
and moved back and forth.
Bent over like the Joker yet
standing still.

How much has been forgotten?
Too much has been lost.
A wooden cane was hidden
under the living room, one deck
of playing cards, joker bent in two.
Bertie did not understand.
Facts And fiction interfaced in storytelling.
All that is left is memory.

Imposing passersby,
already forgotten,
remembered all too well.
That girl with the red woolen coat,
almost a century now.
Inhale
exhale
one day
one hour
one minute
one hushed
breath
at a time.
Tick tock tick tock tick.
The taxi toots its horn.
The time had come.

Bertie stared out over the crowd.
Scrutinizing her surroundings with
the raven’s glare.
The memorial flag,
flew half-mast while hundreds
marched in solitude,
memory between each shadow.
Mumbled numbers, names forgotten.
Ticktock ticktock ticktock.

Rivka and Ruben emerged,
the welcomed mirage.
Fragile blue-veined fingers
waved hesitantly in the wind, relaying
shouts of joy from above
the amassing crowds.
The flag was raised.
No one was lost. Everyone knew:
We are here.

Bertie and Rivka clasp hands,
forgetting the decades that have passed.
They are no
longer youngsters.
It is over.
Tick tock tick tock. The flag,
the numbers not
forgotten.

There was a time
when the chicken soup
was not too salty
and when names were barely
remembered or spoken out loud.
A time of the other.
A time when time stood still.
The time when counting minutes
tick tock
and watching the movements
of one another
saved lives if only for
one more tick.

This time Bertie and Rivka
stood at attention, fearless.
They have survived.
Memories of last night’s
chicken soup, somewhat salty
tasted delicious while tears of laughter
jiggled their new false teeth.
Bertie swallowed her pride
and Rivka savored it all.

They are together now.
This is what truly matters,
more than anything.
They embrace each other and softly
whisper their names.