will you visit me on that day?

my mother would start baking

cookies

and shopping for christmas gifts

sometime

around the end of july.

then she'd brag about it,

slapping her hands together

and saying, i'm done.

i'd look in her freezer

and see the wrapped parcels

of cookies, a stripe of tape

across with our names

written on top in black magic

marker.

the gifts would be in her sewing

room, stacked up in the closet.

christmas made her happy.

so when i visited her in the senior

home years later

and told her that tomorrow 

was christmas, she looked at me,

and said, really?

i didn't know that. will you come

to see me

on that day?