Times I have neglected to thank my mother.

1. I am the head chef. I wear an apron that I trip over because it’s twice the size of me. Like a ball gown– like a wedding dress. I conduct my mother sous chef with a wooden spoon. I sneak nutmeg in the chicken soup as the special ingredient and the she tell our studio audience it’s delicious even though it tastes like rotisserie pumpkin pie.
2. I am the hat shop owner and I keep my business exclusively to my father. I tell her I love her but that I want to play with daddy today. She smiles and makes grilled cheese. She watches from the room over and beams like a pot of stew.
3. I am the tamer of the wind out the car window. I say “hello,” and it always talks back.
4. I am the Cantus song on repeat.
5. I am the longer side of a split soft pretzel on the way home from grandmom’s when we both want to be nothing but pillow cases.
6. I am soap on wrists.
7.  I am lady bug finger nails on the front porch on a night in June after she’d come home from work.
8. I am aluminum swans full of leftovers.
9. I am stuffed hedgehogs and owls named after philosophers.
10. I am a green beret.
11. I am patience of feet on a gravel path in August with nothing but corn husks between us and hands smaller than my own that hoist crock pots into dinners.
12. I am Mutzu apples and banana bread and times she has made me soup I’ve been too scared to eat.
13. I am daughter who writes poems and doesn’t say “I love you enough”.
14. I am an approximation of apricot scones.
15. I am the lull after the television goes silent and the night sits waiting for someone to speak.
16. She is the squares of an unfinished quilt that I’ve never needed because she’s woven quiet love into every single day. She is not a saint story but every mother is a saint Monica– moving each morning aside like a stack of papers.