I made Cherry Squares today

The legendary recipe

(Doubled) 

I only ate one (to test, it of course)

Enough calorific value 

To power a generator

Or keep me awake.

When we were kids

We could honk as many squares

As we could get away with 

Avoiding my mom’s wooden spoon 

Flailing at us like some 

Pathetic scarecrow

Doomed to failure.

I thought maybe the smell

Might bring her back

Or maybe the taste

Or the pride in seeing them disappear

Down the gullets of her loved ones.

Make this broken house a home again. 

My mum is gone now, almost two years

And that’s just her body. 

She started leaving several years before that.

Her Cherry Squares (the legendary ones)

Aren’t the same 

Without her around.

Now I can eat as many as I want,

And I only had one. I only wanted one

A lot less fun. A lot less magic.

A wee bit tragic. No strategy to beat

The sentry. No sentry, free entry

There they sit in the fridge

Waiting to be coveted

Waiting to be fought over

Waiting to be honked

Nobody here to honk them

It said “guard with your life”

On the recipe

Maybe that’s why i can’t sleep.

My family is all apart now. 

We come together for

Weddings and funerals

And talk on the phone

Less and less often. 

Too busy.

“If you bake Cherry Squares, maybe they will come”

Pan of dreams.

Better stolen 

Written in 2013 when things were darker.

Made them again today for my brother and sister