Norman Rockwell would have been out of luck at our house.
He wouldn’t know what to do or where to begin or
how to make us fit for a cover of the Saturday Evening Post.

But sometimes, we came close.
My mother always cooked Sunday meals.
Not the kind of meals that people cook today;

they were stick to your bones, sink-your-teeth-into meals,
the kind that carry you through till morning.
From the kitchen, I would hear my father turn on the radio.

Then, it would happen.

He would take out his records, the 78s,
the good stuff.
I would be lured into the next room.

I became the sound, the beat, the bouncing melodies,
spinning around dizzy,
spinning into another world.

My normally belligerent father
would become this jovial man-
eyes dancing along with my feet, smiling, laughing.

Aromas filled the air along
with melodies of happy music,
mingling as we did,

as a family, a family
for one day, one afternoon
when I finally felt truly loved.

This must be what it’s like
living in those pictures.
This is what it is to be Daddy’s little girl.

In that moment,
we could pass for a Rockwell.
His Sunday Evening Post.