​POETRY 

"Let us resurrect Sunday night dinners at Nona's."
                                     Photo by Weebly.com                                    

Slow-simmered Bolognese
by Kathryn Santana Goldman

Cousins, let us rescue the Bolognese
of our ancestors before it is reduced
to cans of tomatoes
and fried ground beef.
 
Let us recover the recipes
from stained cookbooks, the ones
nestled next to flour, the ones
our mothers used.
 
Let us sleuth out faded ink in margins.
The secret rescue notes exchanged--
mother to daughter, sister to cousin.
Confidence assured by requests for seconds.
 
Let us resurrect Sunday night dinners at Nona’s.
Recall olive oil releasing the aromatics
of chopped onions she used
to camouflage her real tears.
 
Cousins, let us create our own legacy stew.
Season lightly with salt,
minced marriages, sliced friendships,
sautéed lovers.
 
Then, we will let it simmer for hours,
maturing in our rich ragu.
Each spoonful will be
a savory serving of our lives.

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​​A San Francisco native, Kathryn Santana Goldman has been writing poetry for over 30 years. Early in her nursing career, she began writing to process stressful clinical experiences. In 2013, Kathryn took her first OLLI poetry class, fell in love with the genre, and has honed her skill ever since. As an avid photographer, she enjoys capturing images of people and places and uses these as muses for writing. During the pandemic, she combined her nursing background with her passion for poetry and designed a guided wellness class, Your Write to Resilience, using poems as prompts. She retired in December of 2022 and is excited to have more time to explore contributing to her community through the magic of poetry!

Other works in this issue:
Poetry:
Why We Say I Do

​Brown Eyes

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