My mother claims she makes
the yellowest, brightest, most remarkable
sunny-side-up eggs a girl will taste.
Eat, she insists,
thrusting plate after plate
of steaming slabs of Antarctica
with yolk dribbling down the sides
on the wooden table before me,
her presence a whining mosquito
as she watches me finish each oily piece off.
It’s true, I admit to her, clutching my
overwhelmed stomach, these are amazing.
This 57 year old immigrant grins,
digs her fingernails
into her unwashed hair, flakes of dandruff
shower onto my plate, and I think:
mom, you idiot,
the only reason I put up with you
and your plethora of eggs
is the same reason why you put up
with my lousy grades, obsession
with 50 dollar lipstick, perpetual complaints,
why we will cling to each other’s arms
and wash our pillows with tears
the night before I leave for college---
we both suffer from this insanity
called unconditional love