☀ Today's Poem: "Lounging on the Couch on My 39th Birthday in Pink Flannel Donut Pajamas" Julie Danho

Surely birds would love to peck
at the dozens of donuts adorning
my arms and legs: the glazed, the jellied,
the vanilla frosted scalloped at the edges
like the worn lace tablecloth in Sito's
tenement apartment where my mother
father sister aunts uncles cousins
would cram in Sundays, post church,
and I'd eat the frosting off two, return
the bottoms to the box while Sito frowned
and Gido insisted I should disfigure
as many donuts as made me happy. After
he died, she pulled the walls around her
like an afghan and didn't leave. Sundays,
when I delivered the church bulletin
to her recliner, she'd clasp my face
in both hands, grateful. It's been decades
since I sat in a pew, but I brought my mother
to the last church hafla, where she won
these pajamas instead of what she wanted
(the platter of walnut baklawa). And maybe
I've lived too long to be lounging in pink
flannel donut pajamas, but I love how they
rub against my legs like a cat's head,
love that someone spent time dreaming up
improbable donuts, like this one here
frosted blue-green, then crosshatched
with piped white stripes, topped with pink
and red sprinkles, a sugared inner tube
floating the middle. How can't I be hungry?
In the next room, my birthday cake sits
on Sito's old table, mine since the day
we emptied her apartment and I opened
dresser drawer after dresser drawer to find
hundreds of crocheted dishcloths, stacked
as neatly as cash for a ransom. We knew
she must have made them in her recliner
by the window on those days none of us
were there. It's almost noon and I'm still
in pajamas, waiting for my daughter
and husband to march into the room
and play me the birthday song they wrote,
her on toy guitar, him on mandolin. I hear
them practicing and it's so sweet my teeth
ache. Sito, was it once like this for you?