Poem-a-Day

My sister and I played catch
with a warm tomato 
from my uncle’s garden
even though my mother
kept warning us stop it.
We were in the kitchen,
my mother at the stove.
Grammy and the aunts
thought it was funny—
they’re just kids. My mother
had cut off our hair 
when it was too snarled
to brush, as we whined
and flinched, even after
she’d doused us
with No More Tears.
Grammy missed taming
our curls into braids,
blamed my mother
for not being patient,
for our crooked bangs.
My aunts let my sister strum
her plastic guitar
even though the strings
kept popping off.
My mother finally snapped
the toy guitar in half.
Mostly she was a good,
funny mom who let us
pick out crazy Easter hats
from a discount bin, 
who gave us Swedish Fish
and Burl Ives records
and taught us to read.
Of course, the tomato
splattered onto the floor.
My sister and I remember
the bloody insides and seeds
splashed on the linoleum 
but not much more.