A Light In Your Stomach

Little Baker

She ate her cookies

with crumbs around her mouth;

tied a white apron

with loops that went around

her waist covered in flour

hands dusted in icing

sugar under her nails

and a whisk under her fingers.

She could barely reach

the eggs on the basket,

so she made stepping stones

out of biscuits and dough;

and with her small hands

and small, aching arms

she whisked until all the butter

melted and disappeared.

By the oven she waited,

patient as yeast:

for the cookies to bake,

for the flour to sieve.

She'll keep making cookies

until her teeth start to chip

into chocolate and raisins

smeared upon grubby lips.

But one day, when her toes

held their own by their tips,

her fingers found nothing

but empty jars with labels

that once said "flour"

that she had seen as half full,

and watched become a quarter

then eighth, sixteenth, and none.

so she sat, defeated:

empty jar in hand,

and wondered

if she needed cookies

all that much,

or if she was better off alone—

and so she sat, depleted;

burnt cookies watching

from behind the oven door