I Wish I Want I Need

The black kitten cries at her bowl meek meek and the gray one glowers from the windowsill. My hand on the can to serve them. First day of spring. Yesterday I drove my little mother for hours through wet snow. Her eightieth birthday. What she wanted was that ride with me— shopping, gossiping, mulling old grievances, 1930, 1958, 1970. How cruel the world has been to her, how uncanny she’s survived it. In her bag, a birthday card from “my Nemesis,” signed Sincerely with love—