Sugar Cookies
Talk about her hands
the way they held the rolling pin,
rolling the sugar cookie dough flat
at 4 am because you couldn’t sleep
and she always liked to get up early
anyways. Talk about how you watched
the sunrise through the kitchen window,
how she showed you how to cut
perfect circles in the dough
with an overturned glass
how you frosted them, too, before
anyone else even woke up.
Talk about how for years you remember
being four in your grandmother’s kitchen
but you remembered it with biscuits,
until you asked her, just a month before she died,
if she remembered it too,
and she is the one who reminded you
that is was cookies
and there was frosting.
And now you wonder how you got that wrong
And you wonder what else you might have forgotten
the things you will no longer be able to ask her,
what faulty memories you have
to rely on now.
Grace Carlson is a writer from Washington. She writes fiction, creative nonfiction, and the occasional poem. She also writes articles on travel, mental health, writing, and books. Sometimes she’s funny, or at least that’s what her mom says. Follow her on Instagram @gracieawriter.
