izzy

my boots have walked further than I ever will
they’re patched in more places than I have scars
and my knees are a tender network

I baked you a cake for your 100th birthday
I’m saving it til then.
the cream’s going sour, but
I don’t care
I like it better that way

I’m still working on your present.

*

sarah

The gas went out so the cake never cooked right. Thick caramelized crust and then just goo underneath. The skewer came out coated so I pressed a finger in, felt the top give way. The warm wet syrupy batter swallowing my knuckles to the palm. I pressed my fist in, and as I drew it out again it made a sick deep suck, a deathless gurgle and I balked at it. I saw myself reflected in the microwave, hair shoved aside, flour-dusted, forty, lonely and sagging, baking cakes for my own puckering stomach. I spat. Spat what was left of the cake on my teeth back into the black of the springform tin, watched the bubbles sit sullenly on the earthquaking top. I wished the gas would come back on so I could tape up the doors, black out the windows, leave the oven door open and sit for a day on the kitchen floor with a packet of matches and a mind for the boom.

*