Hot Honey

The trouble with arriving. We must move my car twice.
Each place my daughter moves she takes my mother’s mirror.
Three panes of framed glass hinged together. She poses
like her, critically this way and that. The cat is scheduled
for grooming. The TV can be transported from room to room.
She carries the mirror on her back up four flights of stairs.
She is stronger than she looks—that candor of my mother.
The carpet swirls of rusted red. Milk doors sealed on every floor.
The bedroom is big enough. The building opposite with its
naked tenants. The sunny yellow kitchen table and chairs.
Each time she creates a home with tiny pebbles on the
windowsill. Stones ferried in her pocket from places she’s been.
When I visit, we become feline, aloof and dangerous. I watch
what I say. She is misty-eyed by friendship. Why must it
change? Avocados ripen for her, unlike hand grenades. The
testing squeeze signals what she has yet to figure out. We want
things, I say. Sometimes friendship stays late like a helpful
dinner guest. Sometimes she changes clothes, appreciating
the floor-length looking glass. I make her coffee in bed.
The morning sun creates perpendicular light. We are in no
hurry. The rattle of a garbage truck. The honking of car horns.
Her thumb across her phone. The expectation of being in
ready contact makes us needy. A second coffee. The cat follows
me with tripping feet. I try not to ask for much. Is she hungry?
I’m glad she offers. She doesn’t want help. I wait with my dregs
of coffee. What she can do with an avocado and bagel. The cat
objects, twitching her tail in the mirror. The secret is hot honey.