A Reckoning

A Reckoning

I would say my stepmother flailed a lot
Emotional windmilling that scraped up dirt
Then I remember her exceptional script
Her desk of librarian orderliness
All those cross-stitched flags and Jesuses
To be appreciated was her good-enough goal

I would linger in the hall
Rather than face her most mornings
Which is why I remember the cross-stitchery
Which is why I put the mirror behind me
And this reckoning has come after her death,
In the kitchen, where the egg hits the spitting oil.