It’s one of those things Home is thick with,
so I keep my sleeves rolled back, ready to hit
back at shittalkers when they loosen their lips.
When I slip out to new cities and sit down
for brunch, there’s always one
of them at the table—a tomato-juice hater
who likens the red, peppered mix to V8 or
waterlogged ketchup. “Why would I want
to drink tomato soup at 10 AM?” one dickhead asks
and I’m quick to sling my Nana’s name back,
to let my saltrimmed glass clock the table
top—its loud thud licking the air and sticking
there like a song. A hymn, spinning itself thick
from the pews of our old church, is a memory
poured into each of my ears. It’s like she’s there
again, her crashing laugh made light so it can pat
at the silence in the sanctuary, the curved ice
of my shoulder blades rising from the seat
cushion beside her. “Nana,
where do you want to go for brunch?” As usual
she picks Bob Evans, the place where Papa
once taught me the word “sop,” as in “Go ahead
and sop up those runny eggs with your toast
before they take your plate away.” Or, no,
it’s the Village Anchor where we end up
that afternoon. It has to have been
Easter Sunday because they serve her eggs
with a Peep on top. Outside, flowerbuds pop
like baby chicks curling pink and yellow heads
out of eggshells. The day has already cracked
open, so Nana starts the round: “One Bloody Mary.”
It’s a refrain we all repeat, tacking on a “please”
and maybe “Make it spicy.” In the wet clink of glass,
we find a window into joy. Our lips touch the edges
of a smile, tasting a familiarity that’s as rich
as it is fleeting. Still kicking it at ninety-one.
Still kicking back her signature drink, red
wrestling against her mouth like lipstick.
She’s still missing Papa, her groom of 71 years,
so she asks to see the cemetery while we’re still
together. Before I drive back to Virginia.
When we walk her to his grave, it’s so
she can quietly contemplate. Peace, like petals,
settles over the scene. It’s as if she knows
—sitting on her walker cushion in the sun—
that she’ll go just one week later, her body
softening like ice that lingers in a glass. Wherever she ends
up, I hope she knows we serve Bloody Marys
after the service in her honor. In my family home,
we lift Dotty’s name to our lips. Zing Zang mix,
limes, and celery sticks swirl in our cups. Sorrow’s vodka
bite rolls down our throats. Red memories beat warm in our chests.

Caroline Hockenbury is a poet, nonfiction writer, and digital-media specialist concerned with consumption. Her work brings questions of environmental justice, animal rights, and Southern identity to the page. Her poetry lives in LEO Weekly, The Virginia Literary Review, and Virginia’s Best Emerging Poets, and her prose on Virginia Quarterly Review (Online) and in C-VILLE Weekly. She resides in Washington, DC, where she is an MFA candidate at American University. Find her online at www.carolinehockenbury.com.