Mom cooked the sauce long and slow
with big chunks of pork on the bone
or pepperoni sliced thick enough
to fill the mouths of my oldest brothers
Tommy and Frank. She doled it out
on mounds of pasta to all six of us
so the littlest wouldn’t
go away from the table hungry.
On this particular Monday
which was her cleaning day
there was stillness in the air
as though something big were going to happen
like before the August storms swept in
off the Atlantic and two hundred miles
inland to blow the leaves and branches
of the Weeping Willow
in our backyard
sideways.
Eight glasses of milk
stood before us, large glasses
and cold. I don’t remember who did it
who tipped his over.
I do remember my Mom
making a slow deliberate circle
around the table, tipping the rest over
one by one
and the chill of more than 96 ounces of milk
spilling out over the table top
cascading over the edge, spreading
in a circle on our jeans, and
pooling in our Sears Jeepers.
So much given
and our mouths closed shut in awe and wonder.
© Jim Gunshinan, 2013
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.