I think of my mom and I picture her in the kitchen of our old house, where none of us have lived for ten years. I'm out back by the garden, around the corner of the house by the sloping patch of yard where my dad planted buckwheat(::). it's vaguely summery and she's making dinner. maybe it's chili. when she wants my attention she'll throw the window open wide and lean out and call my name. I'll come inside, maybe I'll chop green onions and slice the black olives into rings. this is where I picture us.

and my brother, ten and tow-headed, making tree forts in the poplars. my sister inside, playing bassoon. my dad somewhere else, coming home soon.

there must have been perfect moments in there somehow, to make my memories hover in that time.

:

.

(::)(on the mornings when my mom was out, when the task fell on my dad to make breakfast, he would grind the dried buckwheat to make pancakes for my brother and my sister and me to eat. we saturated them with the thin sweet maple syrup he had tapped and the pancakes pieced apart into heavy bites on our plates. maple syrup always tasted too sweet for me and my dad made the pancakes so weighty. my dad has always taken breakfast-making very seriously. my mom makes cheese-crisps and sings mixed-up lyrics to old songs.)