A Thanksgiving to Remember by Pam Young
My mom always fixed the Thanksgiving feast
The meal? A traditional winner
I know she rose before the sun
‘cause she told us all through dinner
As a young mother I decided one year
That I should take over the job
Mom was very impressed that I
Would volunteer to host the mob
For our family had grown to sixteen
With cousins and uncles and aunts
The meal involved some traditions
A recipe that came in the pants
Of an ancestor who crossed over
On the Mayflower moons before
The Young family sausage stuffing
With ingredients more than four
The sausage must come from a pig that’d eaten
Only the best of slop
The place to get that fabulous meat
Was at Gristle Butcher shop
The crumbs I must use in the stuffing
Made from Young family sour dough bread
Mom gave me starter as a wedding gift
By my first anniversary it was dead
It was Thanksgiving morning when I really looked
At her plasticized 3x5 card
With its seventeen special ingredients
This was gonna be hard
I had none of the stuff to put into
The 25 pound fowl in my face
Gristles was closed for the holiday
No bread crumbs, no fresh cloves, no mace
I’d looked in the red-checkered cookbook
For directions to roast the turkey
If I didn’t get it in the oven soon
I might have to serve beef jerky
The clock was ticking
To stuff was my goal
So I shoved a Cornish game hen
In that turkey’s hole
As my secret roasted I turned my table
Into a veritable treasure trove
I couldn’t wait for Mom to see
I’d cooked two tasty birds with one stove
At the table that memorable day
My husband proceeded to try
To remove the little bird from the big one
And I really can’t tell you why
But the infant refused to budge from there
All eyes were narrowed on me
I gave my husband some scissors
He performed an episiotomy
Like a National Geographic special
That little fowl came out
A Thanksgiving to remember
The next year I served trout
