Yet No Less Happy

On my birthday I vacuum my study then get

carried away, sweep through the bedroom,

bathroom. I drink an extra cup of coffee,

praise the May sky after the weekend’s steady

rain, keep an eye out for house finches aflutter

at the window feeder, gorging themselves

on hot blend seed. Soon my mother’s words come

to mind out of nowhere—don’t be sad. I try

to recall unasked questions. It’s taken ten

years to see how she remains a mystery, never

asked about children, will never know I wish

I’d known sooner to have them. Placing

my hand on the kitchen table where hers might

have rested, ringed and veined, I watch the

bearded irises purpling in the sun and

a squirrel scrabbling the redbud. There’s a Boston

cream pie on the counter. Will this be enough?

This—I want to tell her a mother never dies.


Sandra Fees has been published in SWWIMRiver Heron Review, and ONE ART, and has work forthcoming in Witness. In 2021, she was longlisted for Frontier’s Open, a semi-finalist for Nimrod’s Pablo Neruda Prize, and a finalist for Common Ground Review’s Contest. The author of The Temporary Vase of Hands (Finishing Line Press, 2017), she lives in southeastern Pennsylvania.

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