oven-roasted
in vintage amber glassware
(sunflower oil, salt, and thyme);
all those salads delicately prepared—
not a one
containing the despised tomato.
Every mini loaf of banana bread;
every sable, each macaron
(he used to forget and leave eggs out for too long—
days, sometimes—
he was the first to explain to me
that one at room temperature
would whip up far better).
He never touched red meat.
Oh, there were times— too few,
too far between— when tables were turned
and I’d be the one to prepare a dish:
the tomato-based soup
(there was a lot of it)
before I knew he hated tomatoes;
the thirty coconut cupcakes
for his thirtieth birthday;
I wish I could say there was more,
that somehow I’d forgotten something;
that— though I know
my memory does not serve me—
I could say, today,
that things were eluding me
more than normal.
Too few, too far between.
It is 90 degrees in my apartment.
Mid-June.
Sweat collects
about my crown, droplets
forming dripping circlets,
dribbles trickling down my neck.
Amassing about my eyebrows;
caressing the small of my back.
The cake—
the cake is store-bought.
The whipped cream comes from a can:
a distinct aftertaste of aerosols and nitrous oxide,
though unctuous— and sweet— all the same.
I am hovering over the kitchen sink,
paring knife quartering freshly-washed strawberries,
glistening like the back of my neck.
Maybe, I think to myself:
maybe if I had done this for him,
he would have loved me.
