Meg Eden

toaster oven hysterectomy

1. the breaker trips, mother screams,
the oven just exploded, it was on fire!
a fleeting moment, a loud popping sound, dad
is in the middle of an internet chess game, which means,

he's not quite with us. this is a dangerous moment:
dad must chose between a queen and a bishop.
i know it's not my place to interfere
in these diplomatic matters. "dad," i tell him,
"the oven just exploded. don't you think…"

"if it's so bad," he says, moving his bishop
out of its warm fianchetto, "then wouldn't
she come down and tell me herself?"

i stand there and watch his game,
and once it's over, he takes a screw-
driver and follows me up the stairs. but the oven
sits in its hole, unmoved, charred mouth.

"it's as old as i am," dad says, examining
the expired coils like an OB-GYN. "nothing
can be done."

2. mother would get adoption catalogues in the mail,
and after school we'd shop for children with disorders
we felt were manageable. she boxed my outdated toys
in plastic bins. "maybe," she told me, "for your younger
sister that will join us." the younger sister never came.

3. mother obtained a toaster oven, the gaps
from where the oven extended apparent, as if
she'd dressed it in too large of pants.

she told dad it was "fine", it
"does the job". for thanksgiving, she reheated
slices of ham, dividing
the body into manageable pieces.

when my aunt came to see the progress, she put
her hand on mom's shoulder, "I'm sorry for your loss,"
she says, looking at the toaster oven. "I don't know
how you do it. I could never survive in a kitchen like this."

mother looks to the splintered counter,
the hole where the stink bugs parade and once
they leave, she rocks herself in her arms and sings,
you're okay. this will all be okay.

later that day, the door
of the oven opens like a women's
legs, birthing a tray of toasted sandwiches.

Meg Eden has been published in various magazines and anthologies and is the recipient of the 2012 Henrietta Spiegel Creative Writing Award. Her collection Your Son has received The Florence Kahn Memorial Award. Her collection Rotary Phones and Facebook is to be released in June 2012 by Dancing Girl Press. Check out her work at: http://artemisagain.wordpress.com/.