Po-Po's Breakfast Cake Entreaty
Tiffany Tsao
Please eat more of the cake.
I made it for you to eat.
I know you like this cake.
You know I make it for you.
I put my blood into it
because I know you love to
eat it.
I once perched on a stool
near the hot shadow of the stove
watching like a little bird
the process of crafting
cakes like steel swords.
Dark liquid palm-sugar trickling
down the heated pot.
Cinnamon and cloves dashed
against the thick-beaten batter.
Eat more please.
Plenty for you.
I made it because you love it.
My heart is in it.
Don’t be afraid.
If you finish
I will make more.
Eat my
cake.
This cake doesn’t need icing, not like other cakes, dear.
You spread butter on it plain and eat warm, dear.
Eat it in the morning, dear.
Sun baking the sky
blue
burning leaves
green.
When they were children,
your mother and
your uncles and
your aunties
gobbled it up,
dear.
Knife a
slice
and devour each
crumb.
Very light, not heavy at all,
my dear,
my heart.
Eat, Eat,
Eat!
It must be eaten!
You must eat it,
don’t be shy,
gobble like your mother
your aunties
your uncles.
Cake is for one’s
flesh and blood.
I will teach you to make this cake
because you love
so much.
You will make and eat every morning
your children
will gobble it up.
I will learn
to bake this cake,
dear
heart?
Bake it into the blue morning
buttered steel
baking molten in my blood
flesh and blood
gobbled solidly
leaving nothing
but an empty plate
not one crumb
not eaten. |
