My mother's shadow

It happens slowly, at first, like a leaf changing from green to the burn of yellow, the taste of autumn on an exposed memory. Out of the corner of my eye, my hands transformed years ago, veiny and slender. The shadow of my mother holding a stone white mixing bowl cradled in her grip like Atlas balancing the world. I've practiced for years, mastering the bowl in one hand, the spatula in the other
scraping the doughy corners of my life into one flat pan, a heated oven waiting to give rise. I've accepted this transformation, this trick of dark mirrors against
a skin of light.

But now, in the dust of summer's early sun, I look down, coffee pot in one hand, a dishtowel in the other, and I see the hint of her body once again in my own. My ankles, tapered and knobby, the blue slippers, supportive and masculine, the veins rivered and raised...legs strong and thin. Barbara Stanwyck in the kitchen.

My lover sees it too. We laugh, the morning news dark against the windowpane. We eat our breakfast on the porch and count the crows in the cherry tree. My hands fiddle with the corners of my toast and I tap my slender foot gently against the side of my shadow life.