Where the Cake Crumbles

This is a playful but poignant reflection on aging, love, and memory.

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They tell me I’ve been to this tea party before,

though I’ve forgotten the rabbit’s name and possibly my own,

but the saucer knows me, chipped just where my thumb fits,

and the cake crumbles with the same soft sigh it gave the day she left wearing my hat and not a word.

I steep my memories like old leaves that forgot how to flavour the water,

stirring clockwise in hopes the years might swirl back into something useful,

but mostly I brew nonsense, fragrant and full-bodied,

like that love I had once, the one who danced on the table,

recited sonnets to the sugar bowl, and threatened to marry the teapot if I didn’t kiss her before the biscuits ran out.

I walk slower now, of course, with time folded like laundry in my knees,

but I still come for the cake and the chaos,

and her ghost always drinks first.

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