I am wearing my mother’s
apron I found on the inside
of the cupboard door
aged to a peppery beige.
The shock of it hanging
on a nail, slump-shouldered,
as if she had just slipped out
in a rush to die as she was
making stewed lamb and
greasy potatoes and crispy
phyllo rudders through me.
She likely left the candles
burning on the perfectly
set table, tines of forks
glinting like the tiny knots
of silver crosses sewn
into the bishop’s robe
that would one day cordon
her rose-sprinkled grave.
Now at her seat at the head
of the table preside shakers
of rice coupled like dolls,
and bowls of rubber grapes.
I tie the belt loop around
my broadening waist, filling
out her form to prepare
the meal she never finished.
I pat down the crumpled
lap of shorn linen, marked
by raised red embroidery
of the word ‘Mom’ in script.
Cheap sentiment, yes,
but I ride a passing longing
feeling the soft edge
of the page she thumbed
as I decipher a recipe for
lemon soup she wrote in
pencil, smudged to a sheen,
marred by a few dry stains.
Ironic how this apron covers
as it cloaked me once before:
the summer of 1957 over
the flow of steaming casseroles
and sisters’ muted screams
to cheers of ballgames
and activists for civil rights
in the blistering TV set
as she carried me inside her
through the battered rooms
whose wounds I grew to love–
as I set this plate of hot rice
to swinging bells of incense,
Kyrie Eleison, three times–
to the clicking timer shut.
Native of Boston and Martha’s Vineyard, MA., Stelios Mormoris is CEO of SCENT BEAUTY, Inc., which markets beauty products worldwide. Citizen of Greece and the U.S., Stelios was born in New York, and lived most of his adult life in Paris. He received a B.A. in Architecture from Princeton University, and an M.B.A. from INSEAD [Institut d’Européen d’Administration des Affaires] in Fontainebleau, France. He has been published in Book of Lit Matches, Crab Creek Review, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Eunoia Review, Fourth River, Gargoyle, Good Life Review, High Shelf Press, Humana Obscura, Midwest Poetry Review, Narrative Magazine, Nassau Literary Review, Press, Spillway, Sugarhouse Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Verse, Whelk Walk Review and other literary journals. Stelios’ debut book of poetry titled “THE OCULUS” is forthcoming from TUPELO PRESS in October 2022. Stelios has held positions on the Boards of the French Library of BOSTON, Historic New England, the Fragrance Foundation, and ACT-UP. Besides reading and writing poetry, Stelios is an avid gardener and sailor, and also a contemporary artist, specializing in abstract oil painting.