Blowing Out the Candles
by Rebecca L. Morrison

My fingers knead the soft ivory pastry bag -
silver-tipped like the silver tongue I used
to convince him I could bake to begin with -
as I struggle to gather the last dollops of icing.

Swoop, swoop…
his name flies from my fingertips in wavering script.
And the cloying decadence ribbons
across this red velvet cake
I’ve baked for his twenty-ninth birthday.

But I run dry as I’m piping
the last letter of his first name,
and I discern, belated, that I never
had the right amount of frosting…
in the first place, not enough to ice his cake.