A Simple Thanks - April 20 2023

 

A Simple Thanks

April 20 2023

Dinner appeared on the table

as if by magic.

A nuclear family

of breadwinner dad

and home-maker mom.

Whom we took for granted had prepared

the mushy peas

and lumpy mashed potatoes,

and something to do with the meat

we naturally expected

as mid-20th century

red-blooded men.

Nuclear

as in Hiroshima.

So we shouldn't have been surprised

when she went ballistic,

an unstable isotope

blowing up the family

and declaring a strike.

And our bewildered father

after a hard day at the office

scrounging up TV dinners

and pizza with everything,

white-bread sandwiches

and Chinese to-go.

His only deterrent

against a determined foe.

She'd had quite enough

of our unappreciative ways.

The recurring complaints

about cardboard meatballs

and dried-out rice,

desserts

of canned peaches

in heavy syrup,

green jello

with sliced oranges.

A simple thanks, I learned

puts food on the table.

And that a mother's work

is never done.

Was the whole ordeal worth it?

The cooking lessons were.

Which she took

after taking our complaints to heart.

It's different now, of course

with same-sex families

and stay-at-home dads,

mothers

who work outside the home.

With meatless dinners

and vegan kids,

gleaming kitchens

that sit unused.

Because the half-life

of the home-maker mom

has run out of time.

And because no one bothers to cook, anymore,

or even knows how.

I probably tortured the metaphor, but just couldn’t resist🙃. The title is a little anodyne and could have been more enticing. But really, this is the beating heart of the poem (or at least where it began), and I wanted to spotlight it.