your life in desserts

I made you the first sweet thing you ever tasted
a butternut squash flan on your first birthday
you rolled it around on your tongue
the amber honey dribbling down your chin
you released the bite from your gummy grip back onto the table
sweets were not your thing

the second summer of your life
I carried you in a sling on my back
through the strawberry fields behind your house
trailed by Yuki and a nagging sense of nostalgia
for every fleeting lilac-scented sun-drenched minute
that summer when your little chest was always sticky and stained with berry juice
and your solid sweaty weight against my back
a counterweight to my heavy boots
anchored me to earth in just the way I needed
grounding me in a time when a deep and unrelenting grief
kept snatching at me
ensnaring me, snagging my joy, threatening to whisk me away
(to where, I don't know)

I picked my way through the path beside the creek
where later you built up a rockpool with Coco
careful to sidestep the poison ivy that swiped at my bare calves
walking until your head began to loll
until your body grew pliable with exhaustion, then sleep
I walked back to the house
and like a circus contortionist performed a near impossible backbend
to lay you out flat on the bed on your back
to slide the sling straps silently smoothly from my sunburnt shoulders
so you might keep sleeping

I would lower my body, heavy with sadness, heavy with June July August heat
onto the cold floor beside your bed
and pet Yuki or skim a book or knit you something
or wait for you to wake

your second birthday was a pancake party
and I showed up with Yuki and a quart jar of sour cherry sauce as big as your head
you learned Yuki's name before mine

and on the first Halloween you partook in (you were two)
we walked hand in hand down the street,
your mom beside us laughing
instructing you to ring the doorbell
to pass all of your candies to me
you alternating between bravely approaching the door shrieking like a screech owl
(your life a devotional to birds of prey, but I believe you were dressed as Peter Pan)
and shyly hiding behind me, pushing me forward to accept the candy
that neither of us wanted

on your third birthday, I didn't see you (you were in New Hampshire),
but your parents had celebrated
an intimate union, a communion, mere weeks earlier
where I made too many cakes, that we ate on the dance floor
by the bonfire
and French toasted at breakfast
and before that, we had baked test cakes together
and you, still not really one for sweets,
would finish applying the frosting
then announce you were off to bed before we'd had a taste

on your fourth birthday, I said I'd make you a cake and
you said let's talk
so we did, via FaceTime, on your papa's phone one night
a blueberry cake with strawberry frosting
NO a strawberry cake with blueberry frosting
and banana whipped cream, could you do that?
(this is a confusing cake, huh?! you said)
I can try, I said
and we frosted it together, double layers, ethereal fluff with lemon
spangled with strawberries and a puckeringly tart blueberry frosting
and you blew out the candles and announced you'd made a wish
and you flushed with bashfulness and delight as we sang to you

and I thought to write in a card, but didn't
how everything and nothing had changed
because now you, you talk and make phone calls and have opinions on cake
and a sister, you have a tiny fresh yawning baby sister
who has your cheeks and your nose
and I still have heavy boots and Yuki
and strawberries and your friendship