Monster Cookies

by Kristen Baum DeBeasi

For Flossie

winter’s day —

you will not leave my mind

all afternoon

four years before,

I keep your house,

my weekend job:

face cloths all

folded the same direction

for your gnarled hands

upstairs, houseflies

buzz their last, then fall

silent

in the closet, your shoes

right heel inches higher

than the left

under the eaves,

your teacher’s certificate sits

yellowed in its frame

in autumn,

before I leave for college

you set out lunch

we talk and eat,

you serve me

monster cookies

later that year, I learn

you are moving too,

to a nursing home

I visit you, talk

about my classes, you want

to hear it all

— this winter’s day

you are there with me

all afternoon

I make a note

to see you on my next trip

home

too late, next day

mother phones to tell me

you have died

this yellowed recipe card,

the only thing of yours

I can still hold