A Mother's Baking

from your first born, when you grab a dusting of talc, crushed with late night feeds, stirring in bouncing and stories on a knee, adding a layer of stumbled steps, with a batter thickly made of learning to say “No”, doughy rings of crossed arm tantrums, glazed slowly with parent’s evenings and bringing first dates home (sprinkled with questions from Dad) before adding candles for sweet sixteens and exam results, packaged carefully in a ribboned box to protect from life in a university dorm, your tears adding moisture to an increasingly distant mixture, silver lace can be wrapped around to celebrate a wedding, supporting that newly added layer of Mr and Mrs, matching mortar boards made from icing, surrounded by love heart shaped chews, you buy an electric whisk when your hands hurt from stirring, still rustling up cookies for grandchildren using grandma’s special sugar, butter and flour, until you go back to the trusted cookbook, scattering gold dust over fifth birthday cakes, dyed icing and sponge into the colours of a superhero – a grandchild’s eyes bigger than their belly, your cakes gradually change from pottery to silk, from gold to diamond, for your anniversaries past, you contemplate making a Victoria sponge in black, allow yourself to grieve your husband’s last, until a great grandchild grins and brings you a cupcake all aglow, revealing a one hundredth birthday candle which is your very own to blow