My mother asks what my children will call me,
if not “Mother”
Kaitlyn Crow
I ate a dozen of my mother’s deviled eggs during my twenty-third birthday dinner. Family recipe. I pop them into my mouth, whole, and then chew. We sit in the living room with my family, after, digesting. My mother breaks the silence, asks what my children will call me, if not “Mother,” and I pause before I answer, hands on my stomach, full, round, but not with life. I tell her I don’t know; maybe I will never need to. This is something she doesn’t understand. I know when her eyes see me, they still see woman, something round, delicate, unboiled. Maybe she’d see me as whole, as other, if my own yolks were whipped into a vinegary paste of mayonnaise, mustard, salt, pepper, paprika, and I could bite my breasts flat against my plate like I do her deviled eggs: whole, and then chew.
Writer’s Notebook
When I found myself with a lot of at-home-thinking time in 2020, I finally got the chance to face up to some things that I had always pushed aside: my discomfort with the gender binary and the expectations that follow it - ultimately, my feeling of otherness. Then I told my boyfriend, my close friends, my family that I am nonbinary. My mom asked me something I’d never really considered in all of my at-home-thinking time, and so was born my first poetic leap into analyzing my own gender identity and expression, how others perceive me and will continue to perceive me, and how I really feel about all that.
about the writer
Kaitlyn Crow is a queer poet based in Richmond, Virginia. Their works have appeared or are forthcoming in Apeiron Review, bluestockings magazine, and Wrongdoing Magazine, among others. They serve as an Editor for K'in Literary Journal and Chaotic Merge Magazine. You can find them on Twitter @queeryeehawpoet.