I stand at my kitchen counter,
two bags of them open-mouthed
before me,

ones that I took to my mother,
who has returned them to me
saying,

I can’t shell them. I can’t see
the shells from the nuts. I end
up biting shells,

which, given her fragile teeth,
is not good. So I bring them
home, spill the oval beads

onto the granite counter that
looks as if it could have been
chiseled from the rocks

that line the lake next to my
mother’s house. I crack a few
half-opened nuts,

see how hard they are to open.
They’re tough buggers, those
shells, sharpish on the edges,

but I find myself on a roll‚
thumb nails aligned in the sliver
of shell through which

the nut peeks, reluctant to be
exposed. But expose them I do,
one after another, after another

and another—split, crack, plop—
plunking the greenish nuts she
craves into the tall

plastic container she has returned,
the one I’d given her last week with
split pea soup,

both filled with the very definition
of handmade (or hand shelled),
another word for love.