Twenty-six in a Fishbowl Year 

 

 

 

My mother makes her own two-layer birthday cake

and I am hanging around with the others for the spoon, 

the bowl or one of the beaters to lick. 

 

I ask how old she is—all I know

is that she is older and taller than me. 

She says twenty-six

 

and I can imagine twenty-six but not

twenty-six years old—she is so old.  I wonder

how it will feel to be twenty-six

 

someday.  But the year I turn 

twenty-six, I confuse myself.

Going through a divorce

 

and moving my little ones 

a hundred miles away, I think twenty-

seven all year long.  Totally miss twenty-six. 

 

 

 

 

Melva Sue Priddy