"Cooking Dinner in My Mother's House", Elizabeth Fong

My mother says: 
measure rice by the handful 
and oil by the thumb. 
These are portions enough for the family.  

This is what love is, she does not say: 
the dance of a body over a stove, 
blanching bones for broth; an apron wrung 
between bloody fingers after gutting fish. 

Wait for the oil to sing before you add vegetables 
into the pan. Listen to what your belly 
tells you it wants. I ladle soup into bowls, 
holding an afternoon of my mother’s labour.

This is what love is, no one needs to say. 
Outside, the sun is bathing the tomatoes on their vines, 
baking the flagstones underfoot, 
warming the earth in my mother’s house.

/ Elizabeth Fong is a lawyer, poet, and member of the poetry collective, Zerosleep. Her work has been published in various SingPoWriMo anthologies over the years.

READ: "Clear Soup", Gerline Lim →

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