Today, I opened up the last fruit cake
mama baked six years ago,
three years before she died.
The sense of being motherless,
returned like darkness after dawn,
urged me to exhume this
body from its crypt--
transformed into sacrament
by my transubstantiating will.
It was wrapped in cheese cloth,
drenched with bourbon,
vacuum packed, and frozen.
Preserved in alcohol and ice,
it looked fresh baked
as I unwrapped the mummy,
half expecting to see
a pattern of her face emerge
among the nuts and candied fruit.
I pondered long that culinary artifact
before I cut a slice.
I ate it slowly,
each bite exuding alcohol,
released by sips of tea, which thawed
the frozen memories--still flowing
long after I returned it to its tomb,
back into the bourbon and the ice.