Sugar

The universe breathed through my mouth

when I read the first chapter of patience.

I held the book away from my body

when the illustrations became life-like:

the kite flew over the grass, a child tumbled

down a hill and landed at the mouth of neon waters.

The fox curled into itself under the tree

and an eagle parted the sky like the last curtains.

I found myself wandering the forest, revising

the stories as I worked the heavens.

I lived inside the candied house

and hung the doors with sweetness.

I devoured the windows and I was greedy.

With all this sugar, I still felt trapped.

I sought to change the moral

so I filled my baskets daily with strawberry,

thorn, and vine, piled my home

with pastries and the charge of regret.

I placed those regrets inside the oven

and watched the pie rise. I wanted

everything in the pie and yearned

all the discarded ingredients.

I kept myself in the kitchen for years.

Everything up in smoke and yet my apron

was pristine, my hair done just right.

You can say it was perfection, a vision

from the past, waving a whisk through a bowl

as if it were a pitchfork. When I left the house

made of confection, that’s when I began to live,

for everything I gave up was in that house.

I remember you there. Your fingerprints vaguely

visible in the layer of flour on the table.