Mother, Easter 2014

by Melissa Dickson

She’s seventy today. Already
my child longer than I hers.

In her basement apartment
my husband tutors her on a new TV,

the intricacies of its remote,
the possibilities on screen.

Upstairs, the children begin to long
for next year’s Easter morn.

There’s lamb in the oven, mint
on the sill. She’ll want balloons,

ice cream, something wrapped
in paper and streaming ribbons.

She needs her pills and another
skein of yarn for the blanket

she’s been knitting twenty years,
and may knit for twenty more.