Making Kombucha (and Everything)

She said she’d give me
half her mother,
and I was grateful,
as you must be
with such an offer.
A slick and slimy mother
named SCOBY, but a
mother nonetheless.
Maybe this is the best
we can do: raise our
own mothers and
then split them to
give to others,
who will, in turn,
do the same. Thus
ferments the future.
Thus, love cloned.









Vivian Wagner is an associate professor of English at Muskingum University in New Concord, Ohio. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Creative Nonfiction, The Atlantic, The Ilanot Review, Silk Road Review, Zone 3, and other publications. She’s also the author of a memoir, Fiddle: One Woman, Four Strings, and 8,000 Miles of Music (Citadel-Kensington), and a poetry collection, The Village (Kelsay Books). www.vivanwagner.net