Fried Pickles

After the funeral, we ate chicken spaghetti

made in the basement of a dusty old church,

plopped on paper plates by Proverbs 31

women with hairnets and a minister who spoke

with a Southern twang. I don’t know if Grandma 

went to heaven, but I do know she wouldn’t like 

boxed noodles smothered in cream of chicken soup. 

At six months pregnant, the bulge of my belly 

doesn’t like it, either, but I swallow grace regardless. 

Afterwards, my father drives us to a roadside dive bar, 

and I order fried pickles, battered thick and dipped

in jalapeño ranch. I am choking down memories and rainbow

colored TUMS, and somewhere inside me, 

my daughter is growing a head full of hair—a nest 

of raven feathers, ebony curls, just like Grandma’s. 

Somewhere inside me, she is smiling and growing wings. 

My grandmother smiles back.

We never ate chicken spaghetti again.