At first, I wish my mother
would consider giving them away—
her new apartment is shy on cupboard space.
How many wine glasses do you need?
I ask, trying to sound reasonable.
She responds by saying,
But they’re for red wine,
as if that explains it—
as if of course, she needs eight
beautiful globe-shaped glasses
for serving pinot noir and merlot.
And they’re so hard to find
in this exact shape, she adds,
clearly pleased with these glasses
she has transferred
from home to home to home.
And so, I think, of course,
she needs these glasses
round as grapefruits, clear
as happiness. I imagine her
sipping a fruity red with easy-drinking
tannins and a super-soft finish.
I imagine the smile on her face
as she sips from the larger goblet
designed so the wine can contact
more air and thus open up
so its cherry and raspberry notes
shine through. I imagine the smile
on her face—and I slide
the glasses onto the shelf
and move on to the china,
the measuring cups, the spoons.
Posts Tagged ‘mom’
While Unpacking Giant Wine Goblets
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, mom, moving, wine on August 14, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Long Distance Breakfast
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breakfast, cake, daughter, food, mom, mother's day on May 9, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!
Because I can’t serve you
breakfast in bed, I’ll
serve you a poem,
and knowing how
you like cake for breakfast,
it will be a sweet poem,
with penuche frosting
swirled atop every line.
And because it is a poem,
we can imagine
that the mug with pictures
of your granddaughter
(due to arrive on Monday)
has already arrived
and that it is filled with
Café Vienna, and laced,
why not, with whiskey,
because, hey, it’s a poem,
and you won’t really
get drunk, just happily
tipsy on all the love
served between the lines,
the kind of love that makes you
lean back into the pillows
and close your eyes
and smile like you have
life’s best secret,
the kind of love that makes you
leap out of bed and laugh,
buoyed by joy, a bit of penuche,
creamy and sweet,
still singing on your tongue.
Playing Family
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged family, game, growing up, mom on September 9, 2020| Leave a Comment »
for Grace
I’m too grown up now to play family,
says the six-year-old girl. But I hear
in her voice that part of her
still loves the game.
I long to tell her that now,
at fifty, playing family is still
one of my favorites.
I’m less wild about the version
where I’m the mom telling the kid
no, they can’t get the toy they want.
But I like the game when I sit on the couch
and say to my son or daughter,
Hey, come snuggle in, and they do.
I like it when we stand around the kitchen counter
laughing at whatever we’re laughing at.
I like when we’re driving in the car
and I say, Hey, sweetie, how was your day?
Sometimes, I play dress up in my own clothes
and wear what a mother would wear.
I even make breakfasts and lunches
and hide the M&Ms.
And I laugh to hear my own voice say
what a mother might say:
Clean up your room, please.
Time for bed now. Now.
You have got to be kidding me.
I love you. Oh my, how you’ve grown.
Still Swimming
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corona Virus, death, hair, mom, parenting, river, son on May 4, 2020| 2 Comments »
And so I pull the purple comb
through my son’s thick hair,
the same way I’ve seen
the stylists do at Great Clips.
Wet the hair. Comb it through.
Part it. Hold it between
two fingers. Cut vertically. Snip,
and his hair falls to the floor.
Comb it through. Snip. Snip.
We both know that I
have no clue what I’m doing.
So we laugh as the hair
piles up on the floor.
We chatter, the way
a stylist and customer would,
talking of school and his friends
and his unruly cowlicks. Snip.
I remember that time
I was trapped underwater
by the river’s hydraulics,
how I stared up at the light
shining through the surface
and thought, I don’t think
it’s my time yet to die.
And the river spit me out
and I swam hard as I could
through the rapid toward shore.
I don’t think it’s my time yet
to die. Nor my son’s. Though
all around us the news of dying—
the numbers increasing every day,
stories of beloveds who are gone.
We ask ourselves, how do we
go on? And meanwhile, we do.
We go on. And because my son’s hair
is too long for his taste,
I learn how to cut it by cutting it.
How much more will we learn
as this goes on? How to share?
How to grieve? How to let go? How to live?
And meanwhile, life spits us out
into sunlight, and we come up
spluttering, gasping, surprised
we’re alive, and we swim, what a gift
to find we’re still swimming.
Tucking in my Daughter in the Time of Corona Virus
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corona Virus, daughter, mom, parenting, story, wisdom on March 13, 2020| 6 Comments »
And because she is wise
in the ways the young are,
my daughter, frightened and weeping,
asked between sobs
for a happy story.
There are times when a story
is the best remedy—
not because it takes us away
from the truth but because
it leads us closer in.
I told her the story of her birth,
and we laughed until
it was my turn to cry as I realized
no matter how scary the world,
what a miracle, the birth of a child.
Then, as fear made a sneaky return,
we whispered a list of things we
were grateful for, falling asleep with these
words on our breaths: cats, books, rivers,
home, family, soft blankets, music.
I’m Thinking of an Ornament
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Christmas, mom, mother, parenting, poem, poetry, questions on December 16, 2019| 2 Comments »
The rules are simple. One person chooses
an ornament on the tree. The others ask
yes/no questions until they guess it correctly.
It was my mother who taught me.
I taught my own children. It’s a ritual
as important as the tree itself. Is it red?
Is it round? Is it cloth? Handmade?
So many questions we never can answer.
So many questions elude yes or no. But here,
in the soft glow of Christmas tree lights,
we share moments when every question
leads us closer to a treasure, where
the moments are treasures themselves.
Part of the Design
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged electricity, love, mom, parenting, physics, poem, poetry, son on February 1, 2018| 2 Comments »
My son and I lean together over the thin resistor,
the nine volt battery, the LEDs in blue and red.
We fuss with the copper tape as it twists and sticks
where we don’t want it to stick. But eventually,
there is light, a small blue light. He can’t stop looking
at the glow on the table. I can’t stop looking
at the glow in him. I remember so little
about how electricity works. Something
about electrons being pushed through the circuit.
Ours is simple, a series circuit, with only one way
for the electrons to go. But I know that no matter
how complex a circuit, the same laws of physics apply.
It’s like love. No matter how intricate the scenario,
the laws themselves are always the same.
There are two laws of love, I tell myself.
One: you can’t predict anything. And two,
it will change you. For good. I swear
as I stare at him now, I can feel the electrons
moving in my own body. Or are those tears,
twin currents following familiar paths.
So My Kids Pick It Out on Purpose Just to Watch
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged book, literacy, Love You Forever, mom, parenting, poem, poetry, reading on January 11, 2013| 3 Comments »
Despite the fact
I know what comes
next, despite the fact
I have turned
this page before,
despite the fact
that I tell myself
I will not cry, I will
not cry, despite
the past dragged
up into this moment
like a featherless bird,
despite the sunlight
stretching across
the morning floor,
despite the whisper
that says it’s creepy,
and despite the fact
that it’s not my name,
not my story, not
my song running
so soon out of notes,
I still cry every time I read
those words again,
as long as I’m living
my baby you’ll be.
And I Said, No Thank You, But
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, loss, mom, moving, parents, poached eggs, poem, poetry on December 29, 2012| 4 Comments »
All these years
I have coveted
her egg poacher,
yolks perfect every time,
the one we first used
in the small kitchen
with the black and white
tiles and then in the bigger
kitchen with oak floors
and over thirty years later
in a kitchen
only an hour away
from my kitchen,
but today when
she offered me
that Oster egg poacher
as we packed
her other things
into boxes going with her
a thousand miles away,
I knew all
I really wanted
was for her to be the woman
poaching the eggs
those yolks
spilling gold
in a kitchen close enough
we might eat
our breakfast
together.
It Was Something about Hungry
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged car, darkness, daughter, mom, mother, night, poem, poetry, window on January 19, 2012| 5 Comments »
In the backseat,
Vivian says, Mom,
I want to know
the darkness,
and so rolls down
her window
and shouts,
Hello Night!
And then she
whispers something
to the air
that I can’t hear
though I strain
against the rush
of road noise
to decipher her words.
The conversation belongs
to her, though, and
to the night, and to
the window that
already she has learned
to open herself.