In the grocery store, my mother asks, Which ones do I like? She cannot remember taste. Her panicked eyes scan rows of fruit. We buy two Honeycrisp apples, one Bosc pear, five Clementines. I put them in a pale yellow bowl while she sits in the chair she despises. A mud-brown recliner with buttons to help her stand or sit, help she continues to refuse. The vanishing muscles of her legs tremble under her slight weight. Apples and pears grow mold of greenish-blue, a mosaic of denial. I throw them away, take the Clementines home, stand in my kitchen, peel one. It tastes like sun and winter.
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Valerie Bacharach lives in Pittsburgh, PA, and is a proud member of Carlow University’s Madwomen in the Attic Workshops. She received her MFA from Carlow University in 2020. Her book, Last Glimpse, will be published by Broadstone Books.