Another four-letter word poem…

Cake

She traded in cake, the sheet kind, white cake with white
Frosting, birthday after birthday, in silent sequence,
Each celebration spliced to the next in our home movies.
We waited for cake, our noses to the scalloped border,
Our fingers not quite touching the pink roses, leafy green
Vines, our herky-jerky dancing around the dining room
Table, the picnic table: brother, sister, sister, sister, dad
Behind the 8mm, bar lamp flooding the occasion with
Impossible light, improbable squinting. But mother,
Always mother, slicing each cake with slow precision, her
Dark head bent, drawing the cake knife towards her belly,
Film grainy with sugar, white confetti. Yet mother stood up
Tall at the cake table, imperious, running her finger along
The knife, dead-eying the camera, licking her finger clean.