My mother claims she makes

the yellowest, brightest, most remarkable

sunny-side-up eggs a girl will taste.

Eat, she insists,

thrusting plate after plate

of steaming slabs of Antarctica

with yolk dribbling down the sides

on the wooden table before me,

her presence a whining mosquito

as she watches me finish off each oily piece.

It’s true, I admit to her, clutching my

overwhelmed stomach, these are amazing.

This 57-year-old immigrant grins,

digs her fingernails

into her unwashed hair, flakes of dandruff

shower onto my plate, and I think:

Mom, you idiot,

the only reason I put up with you

and your plethora of eggs

is the same reason why you put up

with my lousy grades, obsession

with 50 dollar lipstick, perpetual complaints,

why we will cling to each other’s arms

and wash our pillows with tears

the night before I leave for college –

we both suffer from this insanity

called unconditional love.