Lesson (For Paige)

by Cecilia Woloch

A child wants to write a book — has written a book, she says —
and she wants to get it right. Will you help? She wants to tell
about her sadness and what she remembers of joy. Those eggs.
How she stood on a chair in her great-grandmother’s kitchen
and learned to cook breakfast for everyone. How we all fell apart
when that woman died. “Can you handle my sadness?” she asks.
So, you lean close, you teach her to spell, the use of the comma,
the period. The story keeps going under her hands so you watch
and try not to interfere. “I have the gift,” she laughs, and it’s true.
Word by word, she remembers — re-ambers — the lost, lit world
of that house. Moming. Eggs being cracked on the edge of a bowl.
Her great-grandmother’s voice saying, “Careful!” — she learns
the exclamation point. It’s midnight, and you should have already
sent this restless child to bed, as your mother would not have, yet.
Your mother, who stood at the stove in her nightgown, who stood
by this child, and let her make a mess, and called her good.