January 8, 2025French Omelet
When my parents came to France to visit
they got on the wrong train. We lived
in the middle of nowhere, too small
for their map. We retrieved them
at another station and drove to our small
house surrounded by someone else’s
grape vines. My father, retired from Ford
in Detroit, could not believe how narrow
the roads were—unmarked paths,
two-way traffic on one lane, requiring
small gestures of deference. On leave,
I had a small break from marking
papers. My mother had raised five kids
and nursed her tiny mother till she died.
All she wanted was a French omelet.
Out of season, the small restaurants
nearby were closed. I myself did not know
what made an omelet French. We grew
up with scrambled eggs on special
occasions and hard-boiled at Easter.
My two small children liked sweet brioche
toasted for breakfast in our dark, stony kitchen.
My mother read them bedtime stories.
My father built fires in the fireplace.
We were all in some version of heaven
though my mother already relied
on a cane and wore tinted glasses
on the narrowing road to a wheelchair
and blindness. She got her omelet
in a roadside café one sunny February
afternoon warm enough to sit out
on the tiny terrace. She refused to be
disappointed with their small, modest
lives, their ordinary children.
She was in France! Eating an omelet!
So light she had to keep it from floating
away with her fork. Just the five
of us in the café. My father
could relax now that she had
her omelet.
We squinted into the sun
with all the time in the world
as the clocks briefly paused
to grant her that small wish.
I keep saying small even as it grows
in memory, looming down
from the distant sky
years after her passing.
I can see that full yellow plate
in front of her. She ate it
for the rest of her life.
from #86 – Poetry Prize