My mother puts garlic salt
on everything.
Sprinkling it on,
she says,
“Garlic makes everything
taste better.”
She even puts it on me.
Streaming down,
covering me,
salt in my wounds,
she tastes me
and says,
“Still, not quite right!”
She pours it on again.
I know with each
new taste
I am not perfect;
bitter in her mouth
the garlic burns.
Poem: CLAUDIA KANE MUNSON, a retired middle school literature and science teacher, has been writing poetry since she was a young girl growing up in Saint Paul. Her writing reflects the complexity of family relationships. Claudia and her husband live in downtown Saint Paul; their three children are artists and writers.
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