ode to the flour i forgot

pale vanilla batter drips wet milky tears down the wiry sloped arms of the unimpressed whisk

pools in the cake pan like a puddle unwanted rain tired, sidewalk lagoon sits with a slosh in the oven. waits

—burns. crisp-lipped golden face sunken in thin-skin unleavened despair

we peer, hair catching in our jigsaw-puzzled open mouths. turn to the fat, jolly fullness of the flour bag. snow in the kitchen plumes like cumulus at the counters. sifts and settles a white bouquet in the batter fold the flowers till they flow, like silk thick and rich and ready to rise to the occasion

a winter love a tender love so warm and true and swirling inside us all we swell we bloom our round gold cake faces beaming from under the dim oven lightbulb, we rise.