Bread & Fish
Timothy McNeil Grant
My mother used to hold my lips between her palms,
mashing them into the shape of a kiss.
She’d tell me to say
bread & fish
bread & fish
& we would laugh the entire time at it,
how I struggled to form the words.
When I started to hold the conviction of age,
we spent hours in curses
at each other, listening to the steam
of our breath, hot in the air,
intertwining as quickly as it
dissipated.
I have let my tongue touch the roof
of my mouth to agree with your point
of being & trying
to put things aside.
It’s easier
that way.
Mother, what I want to say is
I forgive you
I forgive you
for losing the joy of my errors
that you used to hold in your soft hands,
for my choices, the whiskers on my chin
that grew
& sheared like sandpaper,
for the trampled sounds of childhood.
Timothy McNeil Grant is a freelance writer living in the Mission District of San Francisco, California. He spends his days creating poetry, running up and down the city’s many hills, and enjoying the company of his wife, Kelly, and their two dogs, Ava and Maia.
