Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

by Karen Green

Chocolate cake for breakfast
I’ll let you think
it’s a treat
a celebration we continue

a birthday

We did all the usual things
strung bunting
wrapped gifts
sang songs

accepted well wishes over the phone
video
across the driveway

You stay in the car
we’ll stand on the path

The cat enjoys the boxes
from all of the deliveries we receive now

Their contents represent a sliding scale
of necessity
needs
this hierarchy
what day is it?

Books puzzles sweatpants
cherry red skillets

The cat jumps from one box to another
chooses the smallest
falls asleep

We are jealous of the creature
who wants walls touching her
on all four sides

My husband still has a job today
so the boxes keep coming

The lilacs are blooming outside the window
where I’ve placed my desk
to pantomime work
the words won’t place themselves in straight
lines neat order

but the flowers are blooming
and the cardinals eat all the seed I put out
chirping loudly when the bounty runs low
or the squirrels move in to pillage the remains

And we eat chocolate cake for breakfast to
prolong a celebration to
spoil ourselves as the boxes gets smaller to

leave it one more day
before I admit the cupboards are nearly bare

Mother Hubbard
would not have been afraid to
go
go
to the store
go

Karen Green is a freelance writer and mother of two in Chatham, Ontario. Her creative and editorial work has appeared in Room Magazine, CNF, The Rumpus (upcoming), 50 Haikus, and many other venues. Arabella Luna Friedland is a visual artist and writer based in New York City. She’s influenced by a childhood with cartoons, a classical education in anatomy and life drawing, and a firm belief that all art — is a portrait.