Biscuits Our Two Hearts
for D.B.A.

a mystery to me still
why she broke two tiny biscuits
I'd saved for two weeks and two days
into tiny bits- into tiny pieces

what was she doing or undoing
was she liking or disliking
this treat I'd saved

I'd not seen her is why she had not
gotten them sooner

often she is as scarce as gold
and all I'd have to make contact
to connect with her is what I'd write
poems and other words

my pen in hand, when I write of her
when I'm writing of her,
I'd hold with affection,
with tenderness I was,
until recently, unaware of

pen I hold, at once
part of her and part of me,
pen, the limb by which we're joined

those two tiny biscuits though
one with pineapple topping
stuck to the wax coated paper
within which they were wrapped

biscuit and paper it was in
she had to, with care, separate

do you want more
do you want fresh ones, I asked
urging her to accept, to say yes

but she said, no, no, no,
I'm O.K., it's all right,
as if she was having fun enough
making a game of what she had
with what I'd saved, too long, most likely

deliberately reducing to crumbs
what had been handed to her whole

she can, out of the blue, resort
to the silliest antics

Josephine Baker, on stage in Paris
comes to mind

into dance routines she'd,
without warning, mix comics, silliness,
collapsing into and recovering from
such lapses without edge or seam

she say she could do
the things she does
get away with doing them
because she's 18
that was 11 weeks ago
she's turned 19

what she did with tiny biscuits,
in Via Caffè,
was on her 19th birthday
we had met to celebrate
20 days ago

20 days since I've seen her
or she's seen me

have we broken up like biscuit
was what she was doing
after all
symbolic


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2010
5:40 p.m. 01.12.10