Read Write Poem - Secrets from Mom

Little Secrets

My mother made my father’s lunches
in advance, five white-bread sandwiches
minimally filled with butter, meat, cheese
wrapped in wax paper, corners taped

Each week she baked a fresh batch
of refrigerator cookies, thick butter batter
tinged with vanilla, rolled into a log and sliced,
packed in pairs then frozen

Each morning my father pulled a brown
paper bag from the drawer, snapped it open
filled it with one frozen sandwich, one
apple and one icy pack of cookies

Two cookies a day, ten cookies a week,
yet by week’s end, two dozen cookies
had vanished, it wasn’t me, I swore,
I didn’t even like those boring cookies,

Give me chocolate chip any day, my mother
the master of the chocolate chip cookie
made with semi-sweet chips, brown sugar,
and a cup of lard, now that was a cookie

It wasn’t my brother, he didn’t even like
those boring cookies, they were frozen!
and if he wanted a snack he made himself
(another) peanut butter sandwich

Each week we exchanged suspicious
looks, accusing, but never sure, until
much, much later, when dad was gone
and mother soon to be, guilty, all three

of pilfering packs of frozen cookies,
risking our eye teeth and canines to break
off chunks, then letting the dough warm
in our mouths, chewy and satisfying