Amy Raasch

My mother sits at the kitchen table. Sit down, A. 

That’s OK, I say and stand at the counter 

with vegan yogurt and granola—all California 

in Minnesota. The kitchen table 

is her world, and she likes the dimmer 

all the way up. My siblings and I call it 

The Interrogation Light, not remembering

she is blind in one eye (the day she lost sight 

the one time she mentioned it) or the end-stage 

lung disease she’d had for twenty years. 

All I had to do was sit at the kitchen table. 

But she chewed with her mouth open,

so transported by the conversation 

she couldn’t contain her wonder. 

It was a habit I didn’t recall from childhood.

I looked down at my plate strategically.

Old high school torn down

‍ ‍[mouth open]

Family friend, ex-football star, on life support

‍ ‍[mouth open]‍ ‍

Cardinal kicking snow from her father’s giant bird feeder, six feet tall

[mouth open]

Mashed potatoes, leftover ham, a reheated roll

[mouth open]

Cardinal on snow. 

At 4 a.m., I lift her mask 

just long enough to drip morphine 

onto her gums, her mouth

too wide to speak. All this time,

she’d been trying to get enough 

oxygen to stay at the kitchen table.

I slice a sliver of tomato,

a few coins of banana 

I will scatter for the birds before night.