I Am Stirring the Chicken Soup in Circles and Thinking

Hannah Butcher-Stell

I am stirring the chicken soup in circles and thinking

about how Abraham bought Sarah’s burial place
from a stranger.
How much weeping he must have done,
palms up, suddenly
without a place for her body.
Surely he knew the saying
that G-d creates the cure
before the ailment.
Coriander, sea salt, onion powder, I cannot prove
that this chicken soup
will cure your headache or your cough.
But if you’ve ever stepped
into our apartment and found the windows
already opened and the soup already warmed
and my shoes already flung
beside the couch—have you wondered
how many acts of love
you’ve forgotten to measure?
I ask because Sarah’s bread
was always baking, her candles were always lit
and the Sages say her days were perfect.
Did Abraham count them?    
I ask because he re-married and re-fathered
children but before all that he bought
her burial place from a stranger.
Where will you go when I go?
Will you buy me a cave or some
grass under a tree? A stone from the city?
Carrots and parsnips and chicken
shreds and sticky notes on the fridge—all of it
is the same, all of this
is what I’m thinking about today.