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.