The Night She Left

How do you bake a cake?
Crack the eggs in sloppy gestures,
throw into a pan, into the oven.
Sugar-dusted baking magic;
and it rises glorious.

How do you live a life?
Not quite the same recipe.
Desire, and regret, hatred, tears
they’re sewn together in these drapes
that frame my daughter’s window.

She ripped them off saying “I hate you.”
Saying “I wish Dad was here.”
Saying “I wish I was dead.”
Her dinner lies uneaten on the table.

I called her friends, all of her friends;
her pink bedazzled cell grows warm
from the sweat on my hands.
Your daughter? Oh no, we haven’t seen her.
My voice is ribbed and raw, I whisper
“Just tell her I’m so, so sorry.”

She has hard green eyes like her father,
they were meant to desert.

I would call my mom but she’s dead.
I would call my god but his line is busy.

I got my polka-dot apron,
made a cake for my daughter
(vanilla, her favorite.)
Wishing life were simple, simple;
a recipe in a book I could follow.

Hoping for my daughter to ring the doorbell,
hoping for a buttercream-frosted ending.