Thanksgiving is not the place to get naked and unashamed. That was Eden, and we are several miles away.

Thanksgiving is the place to deliver chrysanthemums coaxed into the shape of poultry. As you hand your aunt the flower turkey, distance crimps carefully. It is as guarded and dry as her smile in its separate dish. You tell her she has decorated the porch exquisitely. You are the goofus with gravy stains. You assault anxiety with adverbs and supermarket blooms.

Thanksgiving is the time to speak of temperatures. The weather tureen holds a full twenty minutes of togetherness. Your cousin commands artichokes into a cheddar bayou at four hundred twenty-five degrees. Old farmers expect ice storms. You poke old stories of snowy cousins in pajamas. The surface is sturdy glass. You shut your mouth on sourdough nuggets.

Thanksgiving is the place to curl questions around forks like angel hair. You have not been asked to bring a dish, but you pencil noodles on the menu when every back is turned. You ask your uncle if you can wash the walnut bowl and what he is looking forward to these days. He smiles you silent and asks if you are still working at the animal shelter. You remember that answers are a taste you have not acquired.

Thanksgiving is the time to revolutionize the youths. Your shaggy, drowsy child-of-cousin is not yet crisp. He watches the dog show with his hood up. He offers you a sip of fizzy water that claims to taste of pamplemousse. You pull up your own hood and announce you love him with every fiber of your being. You tell him you are more fibrous than cauliflower. He gives you a noogie across three decades. You order him to always err on the side of mush, even with dogs.

Thanksgiving is the place to feed strays. Your pretty cousin’s boyfriend is lean and afraid. He has personally eaten all the raw broccoli. He is sitting in the corner with an empty cup while your pretty cousin tells her own father about temperatures. You ask about his St. Jude medal and comment that he looks like that one actor. You bring him pamplemousse.

Thanksgiving is the time to kidnap your mother until the wishbone pays the ransom. She is the kitchen physicist in a velvet collar, the only one who can string together the constellations. Every year she brings pastina, “little stars,” a spaceship back home. You have seen her pull your pretty cousin’s fears from the black holy pudding without making her uncomfortable. You smuggle her into the living room to burrow in her arms and tell her you are tired and childless and underdressed. Your uncle announces it is time to break a bird’s bone on fate’s behalf.

Thanksgiving is the place to pass bread in heavy traffic. Your child-of-cousin nearly drops the cranberry cauldron and looks to you with red light in his eyes. Later you assure him that the alarm was false. The wild fruit has been groomed into gelatin, a single unit unable to spill. You picture berries bouncing off in all directions, uncles flinging off suit jackets to apprehend the renegades. You interrupt your artichoke cousin to suggest that we should all spend more time sitting on the floor.

Thanksgiving is the time to take a class on geometry, offered at a family discount rate. The men never ask for slivers. Even the boyfriend claims his slab. You frown over the mum turkey when your mother recites the liturgy of less. Her sliver is too thin to jiggle. You inform child-of-cousin’s sister that she is an indominable woman at twelve and that you love her with every fiber of your being. She asks if you like her earrings.

Thanksgiving is the place to spray cheese into ears, even if no one but child-of-cousin approves of spraying whipped cream onto noses. You tell your pretty cousin that her marathons make you wish you were brave. You tell your stepfather that he is your anchor in the salty sea. You tell your artichoke cousin that you want to be like him when you grow up. You tell your tall uncle that his cologne makes you feel four again, and safe, like everything is still possible. You can tell you are making everyone uncomfortable. You pull on your coat.

Thanksgiving is the time to snap the glass of space, so your uncle bids you return. You cannot leave before the toast. He drops sugar cubes into champagne flutes like a chemist. You tell him that when he plays the mandolin, you believe everything will be okay. You have more to say than you can stuff inside a cup. Your uncle pours the wine and pamplemousse, and everyone raises their glass. All shout, cent’anni!, “a hundred years.” It is enough.

Thanksgiving is not the place to get naked and unashamed, so you leave before you cry. Somehow a single cranberry has affixed itself to your lapel. You eat it with flourish, to make child-of-cousin laugh. Your mother takes you by both hands and fills them with tiny stars.

Angela Townsend is the Development Director at Tabby’s Place: a Cat Sanctuary. She graduated from Princeton Seminary and Vassar College. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Arts & Letters, Chautauqua, CutBank, Lake Effect, Paris Lit Up, The Penn Review, Pleiades, The Razor, and Terrain.org, among others. Angie has lived with Type 1 diabetes for 33 years, laughs with her poet mother every morning, and loves life affectionately.

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