Cookie Bakers

It’s not the memory of the 1940’s kitchen,
radio tuned to Queen for a Day,

or the Betty Crocker Cookbook splayed
beside the Sunbeam mixer.

Not even the fragrance of snickerdoodles
hot from the oven that summons

me, the child, yearning to lay my head,
one more time, on my mother’s lap.

It’s a husk of oatmeal that I find
between the pages of her cookbook

long after she’s gone.