Laying the plate on the wooden table
She sets up her routine for the morning
It has a distinctive scent of motherhood

The bread feels crisp under the first slicing of the blade
As the crusts fall apart from the softer tissue
And pile up alongside her left hand

She must make haste to fill the plastic portable stomach
And send it off, before it arrives as an empty carcass in the evening
Her fingers are nimble in their accuracy

They quiver once;
One would assume a reflex action
But all of a sudden they metamorphose into hands more experienced

Shaking all over.
The wrinkles trace their surface and halt at the bridges of the nails
Where skin is no longer the dominant

As once a lifetime was cut short one and a half or so decades ago
Continuing on into the invisible realm
Where neither old age nor physical marks are evident

For as children's voices drop in pitch
And as a son grows out of picky habits
A mother's ears hear all that is in between

Even in an actual voice's absence
Daily, every morning,
Because hands are conditioned into cutting off crusts of bread

And a mother's intuition is conditioned to love both the material and the abstract