First of all it is clear that the mother and daughters relationship is a little unstable. It is clear that the two did not always see things the same way in the line “they clawed their womanhoods out of each other” (line 3). The poem also suggests that …show more content…
While the children are outside playing, the mother “began to lick the crumbs from my sister’s plate” (line 19). When she is asked about licking the crumbs, she “quietly” admits that she has not had anything to eat in five days. The mother sacrifices her meals to make sure that her children are fed. The child felt guilty from not knowing what her mother was going through. This is the epiphany in the poem. Once Kayla realizes this, she carries this secret around until “it churned in her stomach like tapeworms ringed with razors” (line 38). Years later Kayla finally tells this secret to her sister. It just happened to be a day where she has had a fight with their mother. When the narrator gets to her mom she stands there calmy. The narrator then “hugged my Momma for all that I’d done wrong.”
In this poem Chrystal Meeker does an exceptional job of showing what this family is going through. We understand that they are far from rich but that there is true love and loyalty from this mother toward her children. The reader also understands what the mother sacrifices, but more importantly her daughters come to appreciate what she has done for