Mother's Day

The wedding-sized bouquet from my mother-in-law

arrived on Friday. "Biggest one all day," the florist said.

"I almost needed a U-Haul." Her laugh and the fragrance

filled the kitchen like fog as she handed me

the dinner plate lilies, peonies, roses, delphiniums and

pussy willows as soft as the lobe of my baby's ear.

My aunt hung yellow violas and red petunias

on the house my husband and I bought three Mays ago,

two moons before my belly swelled,

before I understood what unconditional and sacrifice really meant.

"Better give 'em a drink," my mother's sister said,

as if to remind me that we all need nourishing.

A six-pack of greenhouse pansies from my father,

much like the ones he, for all those years,

selected for my mother while I picked the purple fuchsia.

Together we--me, on tip toes--would hang the baskets on 

the front porch before my mother even stirred,

before I developed expectations of how to celebrate a wife-mother.

At the local library story time, my daughter

glue-sticked paper tulips onto her green hand print

and gave me the construction paper pot

like she knew, at two, that her mama needed seeing.

At home, she plucked the yellow dome of a dandellion and

handed it to me as if she cupped the setting sun.

On Sunday, the blue vase that reminds me of my mother,

who loved the color of forget-me-nots, sat empty in the window.

I had hoped my husband would fill it, but didn't ask.

In the parking lot before the dinner I did ask for, before we passed

the sagging, pink carnations in a pickle bucket, he announced,

"For Father's Day, I'm going to rent my dad a corvette."