The Dessert

A screen door slams against the frame,

the summer cicadas hissing their eternal song,

and Nana is already at the counter,

forearms dusted white like forgotten snow.

The scent arrives before the slice—

warm scalded milk and scraped vanilla bean,

the heavy, tropical sweetness of crushed meat

steeped in memories of distant islands

she had only ever seen in faded National Geographics.

She beats the yolks until they pale and thicken,

folding in the flakes with a mother's tenderness,

pouring it all into a crust so flaky

it crumbles at the mere thought of a knife.

Then comes the meringue,

whipped into stiff, arrogant peaks

that she browns in the oven's amber glow

until the tips are toasted bronze,

like old photographs left too long in the sun.

We sat on the porch as dusk settled in,

the screen humming with trapped moths,

a tin ceiling groaning in the cooling air.

She would slide a heavy glass plate between us.

One fork. Two generations.

The filling was always soft as a sigh,

yielding instantly to the spoon,

sweet enough to ache,

rich enough to make time stop.

Now, decades later, I catch that sudden scent

in the aisle of a roadside diner,

and I am seven again—

swinging my legs against the wooden chair,

waiting for the world to taste

like home.