Bad Baker

At around 11 pm
after a dinner of grilled cheese
I set upon my freshly cleaned kitchen
to make brownies for myself and my sleepy lover.
"Babe, do you want to hang out with me while I make these?"
"Nah, I'm settled" - meaning on the couch in the other room.

I grease a pan with butter.
I preheat the oven to 350.
The recipe begins with baking chocolate.
I don't have any.
Fine. I am an intrepid baker.
I will use a recipe with baking cocoa.

The recipe begins with melted butter and sugar.
I don't have any sugar either. Just a bit of honey,
a big of mini marshmallows, a box of powdered sugar
and the specialty maple syrup in a maple leaf bottle
that my sleepy lover got me for Christmas.
I decide on the powdered sugar, which whips with the melted butter
into a light, snowy cream.
I also decide to halve the recipe, using only one stick
of precious butter,
instead of the ostentatious two.

The next step calls for two teaspoons of vanilla (one teaspoon)
and two eggs. (One egg)
I laugh out loud when I notice the empty egg container over by the compost bin
and realize we finished them with this morning's french toast.
I google egg substitutions, and the suggestions are mind-boggling.
I rush to the living room for a consultation.
"Okay, babe, here's the deal
I can substitute:
mayonnaise
ground flax seed
gelatin, which I don't have, but I do have mini marshmallows
or some combination of flour, baking powder, salt, and yellow food coloring."
"How about a little bit of mayonnaise,
a little bit of flax,
AND a little bit of marshmallows."
He volunteers to grind the flax.
I return with a marble mortar and pestle
filled with golden flax seeds.
Without looking up from his book,
he pats the wood floor beside the couch,
and I set our archaic grinder down there.
Back in the kitchen, I dollop a forkful of mayonnaise
into the light, frothy batter of powdered sugar and butter.
Then I fill a teacup with mini marshmallows
and a dash of water
and set it for one minute in the microwave,
figuring it will mix better if it's melted.
I pour in the vanilla without measuring, giving it three good glugs.

I turn the beater on high and start whipping the mayonnaise-vanilla-powdered sugar-butter batter
"ARGH!" I hear from the next room, and the sound of marble tipping over on a wooden floor.
I glance back at the microwave
and the marshmallows have puffed up into a cloud of stickiness
a gooey avalanche
that has just crested the rim of the yellow teacup
and is pouring down the sides.
I stop the microwave.
I am laughing like a crazy lady.
I use a rubber spatula to scoop all the melted, steaming mini marshmallow lava
into the batter.
"All done,"
I hear from the living room.
He is calmly reading on the couch,
no hint of any calamity that may have befallen him in his grinding efforts.
"Did the marshmallows overflow?" he asks me.
I laugh.
I gather the mortar of ground flax seeds
and back in the kitchen,
I dump them in the bowl,
measuring what looks like one-eighth a teaspoon of baking powder
with the handle of a fork
as per the substitution guidelines.
I pick up my beater and whip the mixture for several minutes,
imagining that if I beat these motley ingredients long enough
they'll somehow take on the characteristic of eggs.

The next step calls for one and one-third cup of flour
three-quarters a cup of cocoa,
one-half teaspoon of baking soda
and one-quarter teaspoon salt.
I decide that I am no longer halving the recipe
what with the prodigious amount of stuff I just added in.
I feel repentant about my reckless baking
so I use a measuring cup for the flour and the baking cocoa
and measuring spoon for the baking soda
and the amount of salt seems too small,
so I add some extra.

And finally, I whip my batter into a smooth, dark brown paste
The powdered sugar-butter-mayonnaise-vanilla-flax seed-baking soda-melted mini marshmallow-flour-cocoa-baking soda-salt concoction
sticks and beats and thickens
into a clay-like muck
so dry and tough
the beater begins to complain and stick.
Maybe that final choice to un-halve the recipe wasn't responsible.
I dump in a bit of water,
and that loosens it up a bit,
into a semi-manageable goo.

For a final touch, I mix in most of a bag of slivered almonds.
I smooth the whole thing into the buttered baking dish
and stick it in the preheated 350 degree oven.

I took stock of the kitchen
marshmallow goo trailing from the microwave
scattered powdered sugar and cocoa
utensils dipped in mayonnaise.
And I sigh.
I am a bit of a madwoman when it comes to baking.
I clean up, and retire to watch The Simpsons on the couch
with my laptop and my sleepy lover.

I don't set a timer
so about twenty minutes later,
I pause the episode
and jump up to take the brownies out
The toothpick comes out half covered in uncooked batter.
"Hey babe, do you like your brownies gooey?" I call, bent over the oven.
"I like them every way."
I take them out to cool
and a minute later, slice out a square,
scoop it into a plate
and present it to my lover
for us to eat with our fingers
while we finish watching The Simpsons.
"Mmmm," my lover says.
"You make good brownies."

A MAYA HEE A MAYA HAA
Quick get that light!
Before it leaves here.
The last boy in the dance hall,
The animals that yell when
Their people come home.

A MAYA HEE A MAYA HAA
It doesn’t matter,
Oh but it does,
Got to got to get up,
feel that carbonation –
keep the spark from spoiling.

forgive/forget

love,
lets us not
forget one another
when our days
grow shorter
and our hours together
ebb
let us instead
remind one another
of the taste of
crisp apples
and the smell of sticky summer skin
and forgive each other
what we can

7am

12 hours later
eyelids still heavy
weak in the knees
stomach feels empty
falling behind
dreamed of things accomplished
now do it all over again

Condensery

Let it be small enough.
Let it be still.

lord of the flies

The Devil, Steve Clark, and a pigeon
chose their fav desert island provision.
from the bird: "I'd want bugs!"
crowed the Brit: "lots of drugs!"
Beelzebub: "I'd take religion."

bo-tard bus

you, kid, are "special needs," which seems to involve needing exactly as much as you take, having nothing to do with deserving it (or not) or being forgivable.

you have an extreme excess that really is not an excess, really not to be measured, really should not be in the same room as whether or not the rest of us can deal with it or anyone is good.

I have a lot of inexcusable habits and frailties, that I would like to have nothing to do with whether or not I deserve them (that wish perhaps being one of those habits).

so, lately I am scared by and enamoured with you and I and our excess, wanting the too good truth to be that the question is not "is this OK?"

of course, I ought to come around easier, since my inner life is made of hibernating animals and funny filing cabinets but I'm not as clinically weird as you are, and I'm old.

you will lose it and I will be nice or patient or not, depending on how much I've lost it that day, and later we will talk about our cats, appreciate how soft things are, and say goodbye until tomorrow.

as it turns out, I am pretty terrible and less guilty than might be expected, but a little guilty about that, so I'm wishing that your child-life would prove I can stop thinking about it, whether or not.

EIGHTEEN

The black dog retreats
into the corner of the courtyard
head held high, eyes gleaming.
Blood wells up
in the gash in my forearm.

I took a woman
into bed for the first time
the same woman
my best friend desired.
A knowing oozed through me.

I have the ability to inflict pain -
his door closed.
I can also withstand
lavish deprivation
and survive

more sunburn, from riding the backs
of trucks, seasick on the lurching ferry,
sleepless nights on delirious beaches.
His bite
left a bit of the dog in me.

Then I saw where they hid
when the soldiers came to the village
first the government
then the guerrillas
to look for traitors and recruits.

Eat Up

It's all going to the same place
in 15 to 20 billion years
when the matter in the universe gets cold
stops expanding
and collapses back in on itself
as it was before the Big Bang
anyway.