On the TV in a Planet Fitness women’s locker room, Ree Drummond says to her helper chefs, laughing, I don’t think I’m ever going to make lasagna by myself ever again!
By Livia Meneghin
November 15, 2024
November 15, 2024
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What the fuck does the ‘Pioneer Woman’ know
about a true Italian Christmas lasagna? The layers! The ingredients need at least six hands, only four if they belong to Mom and Nan. One is on cheeses and the other does the rest: gravy, noodle, ricotta,
meatballs, mozzarella, gravy, parmigiana. We’ll put extra in the next layer, don’t worry, Mom would say when Nanny admitted to forgetting the mozzarella. The old house in Tuckahoe will be empty
of the Seven Fish this year. Mom, Em, & I three-way call to make a plan. Only thing is— earlier that day, Mom placed a wreath by her parents’ shared gravestone. She truly doesn’t know what to do. Who the fuck makes a lasagna alone?
I step into my sweatpants. No one else is in the locker room. No one. |
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Livia Meneghin (she/her) is the author of Honey in My Hair and is the Sundress Reads Editor. She has won fellowships and awards from Breakwater Review, The Room Magazine, the Academy of American Poets, the Writers' Room of Boston, and elsewhere. Her writing has found homes in CV2, Gasher, Mom Egg Review, Osmosis, Thrush, and elsewhere. Since earning her MFA, she teaches college literature and writing. She is a cancer survivor. Find her online at liviameneghin.wordpress.com.
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Author’s Note:
This poem’s title says it all in terms of inspiration; a small, seemingly unmeaningful moment immediately sent my mind to the hours spent making lasagna with the women in my family. My grandmother had passed away before I found myself in that locker room with The Pioneer Woman playing, and I intensely missed her when hearing Drummond chat so cheerfully. We’re forever down one set of hands every Christmas. While I typically don’t write explicitly angry poems, it was freeing to put that emotion on the page.