Inheriting the Wedding Plate Set
She inks her name on sunflower seeds, buries them in our backyard, next to the 140 on the bathroom scale. She says she’ll flower in August. I submerge my stalk-thin self in her size M coat, try to veil the disparity she sketches when we try on clothes.
Her oblations to a porcelain god she calls food-poisoning, a weak stomach, nervousness. Don’t tell Mom. 2 a.m., I vigil night-light minutes, cross- legged in my doorway. I am a good sister, I do not tell Mom, I do not count how many times the toilet flushes my sister away.
Sunday dinner tableaued at grandmother’s: wedding china irrelevant under food while aunts pinch forearm fat, gibe my sister’s newfound hips, cluck at my ironing board chest—heirloom plates wall us in. We kick peas back and forth under the table, my sister’s napkin bulges with caloric detritus. Today, we escape pre-dessert, hide in the laundry chute to mask three kinds of cake: red velvet, angel food, tiramisu.
My daughters will inherit eight china plates & seven generations of root decay: eat more, be skinnier, have a second piece, my waist was half your thigh when I was your age. I vow my daughters will learn numbers last & scales an object reserved for the doctor’s office. I plant daffodils next to the 110 on the bathroom scale.
