Recipe for Loss

by Doug Pugh

Crack a smile
As I crack an egg
Remembering
First footsteps and grazed knees

Slice the butter
From sticks
Not wooden like those
That made your dens in the trees

Pour and weigh flour
And watch those grains
Seeing sand flying
Building castles from beaches long washed

A pinch of this
A teaspoon of that
Little things that make
Differences in texture, in weight, in life

Sugar sweet
Pouring care
Where others have hurt
Knowing and unknowing alike, meant and not

Whirl of a whisk
Seeing pedals and wheels
And squeals and tyres
Icing your cake with tears not yet dried

And still I bake
As a father
That loves a son
Wherever your tracks have taken you

Candles lit
By prayers
Of what might have been
Had someone drunk less or not driven