by Shelby Handler

My mother, with her long, ringless fingers, couldn’t
knot the slippery gizzards to the fishing twine, but she tried.

Still, I blamed her. For not being like the other mothers
who bought hot dogs from the Albertson’s,

sliced them in neat rounds, strung them to the lines
of real fishing poles, studded like pink-boiled beads

dunked into the dirty creek. The crawdads scurried,
swished up silt to seize those lures, appearing

eager to be stolen from their homes. Airlifted, plopped
into a bucket. Those mothers knew how to trap

innocent creatures. Those mothers put stickered notes
in their daughters’ lunch sacks, baked cakes that weren’t born

from a box. But I turned out fine. Taught myself
how to cook, how to bake bread from scratch. Last month,

I separated six yolks from their whites, the gold orbs cold
in my palms. My mother, in from out of town, peered

into the pile, saying, I can see myself in your eggs!‍ ‍
I leaned over to see, and the convex portraits

multiplied. A brood appeared. A hive comprised
of her and me and me and her and her and me.

_________________________________________________________

Shelby Handler is a writer, translator, and organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace. Recent work has appeared in and or is forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Poetry, The Iowa Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Redivider, Poetry Northwest, The Journal, Black Warrior Review Online, Four Way Review, and Southern Indiana Review, among others. Shelby received their MFA in poetry at the University of Washington-Seattle, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets, and Best of the Net.