It's just poetry, it won't bite

Thanksgiving


12.02.18 Posted in today's words by

Christine Taylor’s most recent poem to appear here was “An Ordinary Life” (July 2018).

Thanksgiving
By Christine Taylor

I watch my mother take a Granny
Smith apple, peel its skin in one intact
corkscrew. Her stout fingers knead
the dough, mold the crust in a pan lightly
greased with Crisco. Soon the house
smells like the promise of apple pie.
The timer dings, the oven door opens.
Cinnamon already tingles the tongue.
Sweet, buttery juices envelop
my mother’s hand, cooking the flesh soft.
After the hospital, bandages, aloe,
the hand is a horror of sinewy skin, exposed.
I don’t want my mother to touch me
with that hand—I wish she’d cover it
with a white glove. But each day
she goes into the world with her hand
that winds up toys for the bathtub
and pulls up blankets on my bed.



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