Just Another Thursday

I remember, if only barely, 
what feelings soaked the eyes

of the child I used to be when 
on that first Thanksgiving in America

I skittered to the kitchen and saw mother
stuffing cabbages with sticky clumps
 of ham and bread like Germans do.

In my mind's dimlit pantry, 
where memories cure

there stands a puzzled 5 year old 
blinking dully
at those leafy skulls.

So odd it seemed 
after weeks and weeks

of painting plump and fleecy 
fowl in school

that there in my Ohio home
Thanksgiving was just another Thursday.
Father fighting in Korea and mother
just shut the oven door 

on those lime-green cabbage heads

she fixed once a week.

Now be glad, she scolded--

nonplussed, noncomprehending--

today's the day one stuffs a thing

and that I did.