When I don’t eat my mother wants to give it a name. 

She wants to write me down like 

an old recipe card.

Not to be placed in the wooden box in the pantry,

but displayed at holiday dinners 

like the one with my dead grandmother’s 

scribbled instructions for Georgia peach pie. 

Start by peeling and slicing

Drain peaches, reserving juices

Bring to a boil, wait seventeen years

It’s the last thing I have of her,

my mother will say,

and stroke the card like 

my jagged, jutting ribs.

Raegan Allen