Kitchen Daffodils
These are the windows my mother yellowed
with daffodils. Like full teacups, their petals
peppered the sill. In kindergarten shoes, I
could see their wide-open throats, watch
their necks tilt Vincent-gold toward the glass.
Twenty years later, and I can still smell warm
milk, egg batter, the daffodils’ shrill perfume.
Somewhere in the glass is my mother’s
reflection, her head tilted kindly to the right,
her knuckles bleached against the pane.