Middle-aged Daughter

(after Susan Vespoli)

I like to think she stopped searching
for the next hobby, the next career,
the next diagnosis.

That she’s thriving at work and has given up
smoking. I like to think she completes
her interrupted orthodontics

and buys a tiny house. That she
fills it with travel ephemera
before finally having the baby

she yearned for after the wrong time,
wrong father. I like to think she
creates costumes for her child

and produces brownies and dumplings
like the ones she used to display on Insta,
and she’s up to her fourth or fifth ukulele,

sharing her favorite songs, the ones
she used to post on Facebook, with
her daughter or son. I like to think

she’s waiting for the right time
to come back and surprise me–
to reassure me the red rope

in the garage was a bad Clue joke,
and nowadays a sullen teenager is
her only remaining demon.