A SIMPLE CAKE

“You baked for me?”

she asks in a tremulous voice,

a voice I’ve never heard before.

Her face looks like one of those

cardboard puzzles

with some of the pieces missing.

“It looks awful now,” Davy reports.

“I must have forgotten an ingredient,”

I explain miserably,

wait for her to say how,

naturally, I can’t even manage

to make a simple cake.

“We followed the recipe,”

says Richie.

“Maisie tried real hard.”