POETRY -
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The Better-Than-Sex Blueberry Cake
by Elsa Fernandez
Photo by Author
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A year ago in October,
wandering the streets of Orkney. I was alone but not alone. Life was changing. Illness was walling off the past. Facing the death of a partner, I desperately wanted to break the concentric circles that defined me in the role of friend and companion. I glanced in the window of a store, crammed with knickknacks. A tiny carved animal caught my eye— a roughly carved elephant, no more than two inches high, painted in pastel watercolors. I picked it up—and a fluttering wave of happy hope crept through my body. Painted at the bottom of the wood elephant were the words— “You make my toes tingle.” I imagined giving it to a future lover or friend. I have survived the changes that came my way, meeting strangers who became friends, one that surprised me with a magnificent blueberry cake. Plump purple-cobalt-blue marbles of juicy goodness burst with every bite, crowding a succulent pale yellow cake, the milky warmth taste of vanilla rising from its delicate softness, snuggling under a faint sprinkling of powdered sugar. My body shuddered and shifted as I slowly ate a piece, remembering past intimacy and realizing with a conspicuous thump, that I didn’t miss it. This blueberry cake surpassed every physical sensation in memory, transforming a single morsel into the biggest O that existed. The little pachyderm taught me something. Life surprises. |
