I eat alone, yet words never leave me

I used to walk barefooted in my mother’s garden simply to feel the red clay squish between my toes, especially after a hard rain where the heavy raindrops knocked the string beans that dangled –the day before— gracefully. My little fingers were the perfect size to pull the threads from the grassy-green beans. My mom’s pinch of salt was never the same— a dash here, a dash there— then the bacon-looking chunk she threw into the pot. I eat by myself, but I am never alone. Words take me on long walks to the past.