Thanksgiving

A chocolate cream pie nests in my small lap

as the light blue Accord coasts down Downer

Forest Road, brittle leaves roused into clumsy

flight. Dad turns left on to Route 132, the late

afternoon rays shift and glint on the plane

of aluminum foil. The car down shifts past

the graveyard where Grandpa is buried and I

hear him singing in that diluted Scottish accent

of his. We pull into Grammy’s driveway and I

carry the pie into the house, fix some strawberry

milk, then sit and stare into the cavernous turkey

carcass on the table. Grammy perches in her chair,

her back to a series of windows which look out

into the adjacent graveyard. She sits and smiles,

smiles and laughs in front of the windows, the family

headstone an unyielding omen behind her bald head.

Corey Cook’s work has recently appeared in Brevities, The Henniker Review, Loch Raven Review, ocean diamond, Pemmican and elsewhere. New work is forthcoming in Pearl, Plain Spoke (as featured poet) and tinfoildresses. Corey edits The Orange Room Review with his wife. They live in New Hampshire with their daughter.