STUDIES SAY MATERNAL EATING BEHAVIORS PASS DOWN TO DAUGHTERS (SONS SPARED)

Eileen Frankel Tomarchio

Some nights I rescue my mother’s habit from the trash, 
the shell of it, a stiff white crib for a Suzy Q, 
a Twinkie, a Butterscotch Krimpet. Some nights the schmear 
is enough, the trace of HFCS, her DNA going stale, 
mine to lick back to life like it’s a foundling kitten, 
a pretend glut loud as every phone mic held close 
to the snarfing up of wet food in a tin bowl, such a tiny 
thing, adopted, just as the articles put it—a daughter adopts—
but blood already, inseverable cord, all the mothers 
in my family who revered clean plates, unwanted 
want that takes our name. Some nights I stick the child 
of habit in a baggie, hide it in the back of the fridge, 
for forgetting but not abandoning, since the trash 
is so absolute. Some nights my longing eyes can spot 
the eggshell sheen of limp cardboard amid greyed 
ground beef and rotted vegetables, and not taste shame.

Eileen Frankel Tomarchio works as a librarian in a small NJ town. Her fiction and poetry appear in Passages North, Atticus Review, The Bureau Dispatch, Chestnut Review, The Forge, Okay Donkey, Ran Off With the Star Bassoon, and elsewhere. Her work is featured in the Best Small Fictions 2023 anthology. She holds an MFA from NYU Film.