Sometimes I wish my mom and I
were like
the Gilmore Girls.
Talking about nothing, our voices
intertwining into pitchy cadences,
we'd engage in a shower of pop
culture references
and a gossip gab for my father
to shake his head at.
She'd steal my clothes,
I'd call her old.
We'd fight like sisters
and never forgive
until we forgave.
But my mom
is not like that.
She's the quiet on a dewy Tuesday morning,
7 a.m., no alarm clock ringing.
She's understated, does the dishes
every night, because
she says she “gets them the most clean.”
We do not gab during dinner,
but let the soft hum of Brian Williams on Nightly News
dictate our telepathic conversations.
On some nights
we're alone
and Dad's at a lecture
and all we hear in the dead of 9 p.m. are the crickets calling
and the sun is sleeping.
Our bond is not talking,
but mind reading.
Our togetherness is not eating,
but the savoring of every soy-saucy bite of
her famous tea egg dish.
Our relationship is not listening,
but immersion, knee-deep in thoughts
we don't need
to say out loud.
But sometimes even she
can surprise me.
When she's interested in George Clooney's latest lady friend
intent upon the Hollywood Access croons,
when the smell of warm chocolate chip cookies pervades the kitchen,
when my mother, as practical and reserved as a nun,
laughs out loud at some terrible joke
I uttered,
her mirth blossoming like flowers
leaning toward the sun.
Lecturing, cajoling, pushing,
we can be clashes of passion, yelling,
hair-tearing,
when we desire to be.
Quiet pacifism pushed aside,
we are an ocean of rage, whether together,
or against.
She is a warrior, strapping on her armor,
ready for games of mind play and
the screaming
surely to ensue.
My sister teams up with me, prepping
for battle,
but when my mother has a goal,
she gets it.
Her power is the weight of our house,
but her kindness is the source of light
that we live by,
whether we like it
or not.
My mom and I, we're lazy Sunday

dim sum brunches,
a nerdy love of classical music and a really, good stringed instrument,
obsessions with young Titanic Leonardo
DiCaprio,
the warm smell of rice cooking in the
cooker that's probably
older than I am.
We are not touchy
or rowdy
or gossipy
or showy
but we are
a mish-mosh of a mess,
lopsided,
crooked,
randomly squeezed into containers that don't fit (and maybe will never fit)
but we are
whole.
We're nothing special but we're constant
like two moons
orbiting each other instead of the world,
always eternally spinning, always
there.
And that's
the truth.