These Are the Plates

Here they are; washed, like every year.
These are the everyday and those are the holiday--
Washed by hand, careful of the rims...every year--
Ever since we bought this house and your grandmother
Came down that first time,
Boxes packed with china lining the backseat of the Cadillac.

We had a house and a family
And it was time for me to host the holidays.
The one where you were sick, the one time
It froze and your uncle almost broke his neck
Skidding across puddles out behind the fence
Before they cleared it and built the houses.

Your grandparents would come, sometimes
All of the them, sometimes the extended family,
Aunts and cousins...you remember.

We'd bring them down from the top of the cabinet
I'd catch you or your brother climbing up
To reach those shelves, clinging to the edges
of the shelves...there was that time you started
Screaming...just yelling...because of a dead roach
Stretched out like a grasshopper in a coffee cup.

Yesterday you told me that you'd had
A brush of fear, listening to your nephew
Talk about driving to work, the entire length
Of one side of Houston, all the hours on the roads...
Did you hear your brother's friend talking
Last night, one of his kids living in the same apartments
We did when we moved here.

I heard it in his voice, too.

Anyway, these are the dishes. We'll pack them up
And you can pretend you're driving that boat of a Cadillac--
Think about your grandmother and be careful--
And we'll see them again at Thanksgiving.
Wash them before you put them away.
And mind the rims.

Posting this to both The Sunday Muse and Poets United (for Poetry Pantry #429) in honor of family traditions and succeeding generations. :) Hope you have a wonderful week and, for those of you celebrating it this week, a very happy Thanksgiving.

-- Chrissa