Eldest Daughter Tells All

My mom, she, when I was just three, Would binge operas of soaps, and she Tethered to the television, after her sail Home from Pearl Harbor, would not fail To hug and kiss our butterfly eyes and cheeks. She’d store mama’s milk in freeze for weeks. As we’d march off to church crammed in car, Mom saw her binge as a sin and went as far As to stop watching all three, especially as We’d call them Mama’s Soaps. Her new jazz Is God and the bible, and her church friends. Some have kids our age. On weekends We’d go to explore the beach, but then We all moved and Mama said Amen. My brother, once said, Mom, you’re not old enough to knit and crochet. She said, Then how do we learn to? Rolling eyes…as at some point, she Started writing, took up poetry. Those rolling eyes and whys, recorded for posterity, She reads to us one, two, three - her peculiarity.