left-over chocolate cake

left over birthday cake
                   (a day when voices were usually
                   not raised)
chocolate, with extra sugar roses
forced moments of happiness
truce for the one special day
usually reserved for my peace

paternal figure was absent…………………………………he ran away when I was six
birthdays were embarrassing for him
         had to select a card, buy a gift
                   send checks as I grew older
                             (usually his wives accomplished the above)

now nothing arrives at all, restricted paternal duty done, I don't exist any more

all I ever wanted
         was his smile as I blew out candles
         joking, did I get my wish?
all I ever wanted was father at home
                   to listen to my solitary music
to say a word of praise
what I got instead
was a shock of reality
nothing like closeness or laughter
         happened in my divorce-laced fairy tale
he knows nothing of the man I try so hard to become
knows nothing of my years of suffering
on those "special days" when I should not be alone

I settle now, decades later, for hollow memories
of seventy-two hours of left-over chocolate cake
         with extra sugar roses
trying not to let his absence spoil
                             all of my life
                                       just special days like my birthday



         left-over chocolate cake
         10 april, 2006
         (for the Writer's Cramp)