The Dessert

The kitchen clock drips backwards down the wall,

Where summer sleeps in jars of amber glass.

Outside, the velvet shadows start to crawl,

And porcelain teacups shatter on the grass.

Upon the zinc, a sphere of bruised design—

A peach exhales the ghosts of yesterday.

Its velvet skin bleeds nectar in the brine

Of time that melted while we looked away.

I press my palms into the rising wheat,

Where flour falls like snow in empty skies.

The wooden rolling pin keeps steady beat

Against the truth of memory and lies.

Then comes the crumble—sugar, oats, and chill,

A gravel path of winters yet to be.

I scatter fragments on the windowsill,

To bury what the autumn took from me.

The oven door swings wide, a mouth of gold,

Exhaling heat into the surreal room.

It bakes the stories that we left untold,

And turns the kitchen to a golden tomb.

A slice is cut; the amber juices weep,

The crust gives way like earth after the rain.

We taste the quiet secrets kept in sleep,

And swallow down the sweetness of the pain.