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On the Day of Her Diagnosis for my mother by Barbara Crooker a cold wind was bearing down, straight from Canada. The small pearl I'd seen floating in the warm water of her breast was cancer, a word that hissed in the ear like fat in a pan or the breath of a snake. With these two syllables, the dice rolled, and the odds went up for all the women in my family. Early November, most of October's gold has fallen, bruise-colored clouds moving in. I remember being six, sick in bed, how the winter trees scratched the leaden sky, witches in a Grimm tale, how she brought me cinnamon toast and milky tea. Now I bring her lentil soup, with circles of kielbasa, carrots, onions; scones warm from the oven, spread with strawberry jam, whatever bit of sweetness I can scrape from the jar. Mother, daughter, all the old stories, the frost moon, the loss moon, sinking below the horizon. (Dogwood)
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