Nothing Left Over

I asked you all here

Because as you all know

On Sunday

Something happened at Ma’s house

That greatly disturbed me

Ma made dinner

Like she does every Sunday

And there was just enough food

For everybody

She only made
Enough food

For everyone

There wasn’t one extra plate of food

For anyone

There was nothing to put in the fridge

No need for Tupperware

I was talking in the kitchen with Aunt Jan

And I went to pick at whatever was left over

And there

Was

Nothing

I didn’t know what to do

I was peckish

And then I was hungry

And then I was starving

I said, ‘Ma, why isn’t there more food?’

She said, ‘You just ate’

I said, ‘Don’t shame me.’

She said, ‘There’s food in the pantry.’

I’m not going in that pantry

Do you know what’s in that pantry?

There’s food in there

From thirty years ago

She’s got a can of pinto beans in there

That she bought with a rations card

I don’t know what to do in there

That’s why I have Ma

I said, ‘Ma, what happened?
You always make extra food’

She said, ‘I know, but I realized

That what I was doing

Was making extra work for myself

And I should just make less

Since I’ve been cooking for all of you

For decades

And I’m not as young as I used to be’

Isn’t that the most selfish thing

You’ve ever heard

In your entire life?

All these years

She’s been making double the amount of food

We all want to eat

And we complain and complain about it

And then out of the blue

She decides to listen to us

I get enough of that from my teenagers

I don’t need it from my mother too

I asked her, ‘What would have happened

If somebody showed up unexpectedly?
What would you have fed them?’

She said, ‘Nobody’s ever showed up

Unexpectedly’

But for years

And years

She would say

That she was making all that food

In case somebody showed up

And we’d tell her--

‘Ma, nobody’s going to show up

And she would insist

That one day

Somebody would

And they never did

But now

If they do

They’ll go hungry

I could cry just thinking about it

The only problem is

I can’t cry when I’m hungry

And I’m famished

Because all I ate on Sunday

Was two plates of food

And that cake that’s really just a pizza

In a cake

My whole eating schedule

Is thrown off now

My kidneys are probably going to shut down

And it’ll be my mother’s fault

We have to do something

We have to talk to her

We have to explain to her

That it doesn’t matter

What we’ve been saying

All these years

She’s gotta keep making

More food

Than we need

That’s what mothers do

They offer more than you want

More advice

More hugs

More rules

More yelling

And more food

You don’t want it

But you need it

You’re always going to need it

You’re never not going to need it

And you can never really have

Enough