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# Fork
- URL: https://dianaludwick.com/fork/
- Published: 2026-03-19T15:55:56.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T20:10:33.000Z
- Description: “Fork,” written March 19, a short moment of silence for the slipping of time. Poem 078 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. "Toddler Flatware and Time Travel," Photo by Diana Ludwick (c) 2026.
- Author: Diana Ludwick
- Tags: 2026 Poetry Challenge, Homage, Long form musings, Poems, Aging, Changes, Childhood, Eating, Emotions, Feeding, Flatware, Kids, March, Maudlin, Old Women, parenting, Passing of Time, relationships, Reminiscing, Sappy, Time Flies, Toddlers, Unheeded Advice, Winter, #Migrated-1792872215677, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-10-24 20:03

No one prepares you   
sufficiently, at least,  
for the moment your   
flatware drawer won't budge  
because something  
is blocking the glide path.  
  
No one holds your hand  
while you swear in PG-13  
as you try to diagnose  
the unseen log jam:  
  
Another   
splintered   
chopstick?  
No.  
  
Yet one more   
virtuously-acquired  
yet never-used  
aluminum straw?  
Nope.  
  
Perhaps a pho spoon?   
Those are wide  
and wiley.   
Not today.  
  
On bent knee   
and strained back  
I peer in at eye level.  
  
I see a glint of yellow  
and a hint of blue  
and recognition dawns.  
  
My throat closes  
my breath catches  
my eyes water.  
  
The air lingers sharply  
in my raspy esophagus —  
and this one time   
it's not due to pollen.   
  
I gently pry out   
the diminutive utensil  
at the heart of the fuss.  
I place my palm around  
its wee handle.  
  
The one with   
the petite open heart  
that caught so many   
stray steamed broccoli bits.  
  
A million tired,  
tender memories  
flood my brain.  
  
My baby's little fork.  
Her Munchkin set.  
Her weaning tool.  
  
The one I bought  
in our old house  
for her new existence  
with her first father.  
  
The device  
purchased   
and used   
and washed  
and dropped  
and lost  
and stuck  
and found  
uncountable times.  
  
A lifetime apart  
from this moment   
in my old-new house  
with my tween kid  
and my new-old   
husband's and our  
current reality.  
  
No one gave me  
guidance on how   
it would tear me apart  
to discover a small  
piece of our daughter's   
toddlerhood.  
  
I can feel in my hand  
the endless   
lukewarm bowls  
of milk-laced  
sweet potato puree.  
Of kale mash  
and ground beef  
and brown rice  
and smashed banana.  
Of her first taste of   
mint chocolate chip:  
"Too Min-Tee!"  
  
I can hear the   
faint scraping  
of the metal   
against porcelain  
that I cradled while   
making wide arc dives  
with the   
festively colored fork  
into her babbling,   
awaiting mouth.  
  
No one prepared me   
for the last time   
I would feed her.  
  
No one told me  
that childhood   
would fly like  
high speed Internet  
from fetus   
to four-year-old  
to forever scoffing  
screenager.  
  
I mean, they did —   
those annoying old ladies  
in the grocery store  
while I was still swollen   
from delivery   
bleeding and blearily   
pushing a yowling newborn.   
  
Those elderly  
well-intentioned  
mayhem bestowers,  
they did say: "It goes so fast!"   
  
Right before they scolded:  
"Sleep while the baby sleeps!"   
and then tottered off,  
unbothered, back to  
their own child-free carts.  
  
Yes,  
they told me —  
But I did not feel it   
until now.   
  
No one prepared me   
that a new life was   
headed all our ways.  
No,   
I did not see it coming.  
  
No one suggested I   
should ready myself   
for the first time   
she would say:  
"No! I do it!"   
And hold the fork   
to her tiny lips   
on her own.  
  
No one braced me   
for how a cheap,   
mass-market   
plasticky thing  
would force my attention.  
  
How it would  
have me weeping  
in the dappled light  
of a quiet kitchen   
in the middle of  
a work-from-home day.  
I was just here for  
a brief moment  
to grab a teaspoon  
for afternoon tea.  
  
No one clued me in  
that her growth   
from breast to bowl   
to side-eye scowl  
would be my   
first   
and last  
go at motherhood.  
  
I hold the miniature fork  
close to my chest   
with my left  
while I use my right hand  
to search for its mates.   
  
I gather its fraternal twin  
a sweet small spoon.  
I find their cousin,  
a second spoon in hues  
of yellow and papaya.  
  
I'm full-on emotional,  
calculating how time flies.  
She's closer to grad school   
than she is to her time   
crawling in diapers.  
  
I know what I need to do  
and it pains me but it's right.  
I place the family trio  
on a cloth placemat  
while I go retrieve a Ziploc.   
  
I place each item  
down into the bag  
and zip the top as I  
deliver an hoc prayer:  
  
"Thank you for feeding  
my little one.  
May you go and serve  
many other children."  
  
I walk from dining room  
to *The Good Will Pile* (TM)  
in the mud room.  
I lower the baby dining set   
into the yawning jaws   
of a cardboard parcel.  
  
"Bring your new charges  
happy memories of   
being loved  
in warm kitchens   
by people who care.  
Your tour of duty  
here is complete."  
  
No one told me  
that Munchkins  
morph into   
Middle Schoolers  
faster than your drawer  
— or your heart —  
can get un-stuck.