(for Clifford, who married me 42 years ago today)

You’d boil hops on the stove in a huge stew pot
of your grandmother’s, one big enough to
bathe a baby in, she used to say,

and we’d laugh, imagining your 6-foot-4 self
baby-sized, small enough to fit. It never
seemed possible. Other times, you’d make

your own pasta using the chrome press
with the handle, turning out long ribbons
of dough that you hung over the old open

cabinet doors, their redwood innards
surprisingly deep and dark even after
70 years. In the kitchen that always

felt more like yours than mine, you
poured the juice of pulverized grapes
given to you by growers whose photos

you’d taken for the newspaper into green
wine bottles. Later, you’d affix homemade
labels with the dog’s face on them

and trundle the bottles to the basement
for aging. Though you did not age beyond 48,
some of your bottles are still down there.

I’ve never had the will to bring them up
to the kitchen that has been solely mine for
24 years and dump what must be undrinkable.

I had the kitchen remodeled after you vanished
into mystery, chiding myself that we should
have done so sooner, you being the one who

used it so well, me using it to open a lot of cans
of cat food. But I make soup now and my grandma’s
brownies, among other things, and I talk to you

in the kitchen where I used to sit on a stool
and watch you wrestle stuffing into a turkey
after speedily dicing celery and onions

without nicking yourself, before you’d hand
me the knife to practice, saying, Slowly now.
I feel your tall self behind me still,

warm and constant, emanating confidence
and kindness, forever warmed,
knowing that you still have my back.