saying grace at Maw Maw's

Grace is Sunday dinner—

a baker’s dozen or so dishes
Corningware, Pyrex, pie tin, wicker basket
spread out in the matriarch’s kitchen

Grace is “Come to think of it, I don’t know when it all got made.
It was just always there. Always ready.”

Grace is the tacit understanding

among everyone
that it won’t all fit the first go round

So get you another plate!
Go back for more!

But more than that

grace is being a welcome—
no, expected—guest
for 42 years
and realizing at the last
you never
(not once!)
brought a dish
to share.