The Last Birthday Cake

The Last Birthday Cake

I wonder; what flavor was that cake?
What taste the icing
made by those most precious hands
baked in her own kitchen
on my birthday three years ago?
Racking my mind, wanting to remember with certainty
the small details, wanting to carry the crumbs
of memory close to my heart.
Always.

There were no more cakes to come,
the last one a precious symbol of her love.
I struggle to find details through the murky veil of memory.
Her hands and mind now unable to mix and stir
and pour and bake,
Unable to assess and assemble.
Today she may not know this day comes again.
If she does, she may feel sad for times past when the cake
stood as a sign of her love.
Homemade and from the heart.

Angel Food with added vanilla, moist and delicious.
Drizzled with bittersweet chocolate, hardening to hold in place
a ring of walnut halves. Perfect.
Waiting for the scoop of ice cream.
Was this the last cake?
I will never know for sure. No photographs as proof.
Only misty thoughts of a night out,
returning home for our dessert,
The cake she had prepared, left on my kitchen counter.