Cincinnati Style Chili

around the third onion roughshod julienned
into a soup of tomato paste slow-dancing
in beef broth you wonder: when does your
mother’s chili recipe stop being your mother’s
chili recipe?  You contemplate this question
while stirring “her” chili in a slow cooker
she never had—all chrome & digital, endless
settings that emulate grandma’s cannery in
the basement of a house you no longer know
the owners of.  You’re closer to being a parent
than the child of your own parents.  So when
her delicate cursive tells you to use a teaspoon
of cardamom & you say fuck it and handily toss
in a full tablespoon, who is to blame when
you burn your throat?  Go see her, you think,
mad at the miles between the body that gave
birth to the body it gave birth to. Fold in
cinnamon, that’s the secret.  But now you’ve
put that in a poem folks might read.  Is it
her secret anymore?  Here’s another secret:
she’s better than you are at basketball, taller,
more likely to hit that layup.  More likely
to carry something upon those bony shoulders.
You revise on the fly (black pepper, pinch of
sugar – your wife will like that more than
hot peppers anyway), erase the line about
being far away from childhood.  You’re always
your mother’s son.  Even when you’re not.
Even when you’re far away.  Even when you’re
not following her handwritten instructions
in a font so pure they could only possibly
be for you to ignore.