Author: Kronski

Nobody liked it but every year she made it for us. She had to take the bus downtown to buy brandy for the batter, and every year the liquor store owner teased her as if she was a fellow alcoholic. It’s my bloodshot eyes, she mused as she infused the figs and cherries with brandy. She was never wrong about these things.

When the finished cake arrived at our house, Mom would take last year’s loaf out and slide the new one into the freezer. Once I saw her give it a kiss.

This year, she mixed marzipan icing to salvage the fruitcake. That’s what she used on Nana’s wedding cake when she married the liquor store owner last Spring. The icing softened hallway through the reception, and slid right off the cake like an omen, as Nana said. It could have been worse. If the marzipan had been too hard, the cake could not have been cut at all.

Nana still blamed Mom, and as she spread the frosting on our cake, I heard her say, You kids damn well better eat this thing. It’s the last time I’m doing this.

Outside, a window washer watches
me watching him, works his rhythm,
window after window, simulating a
seamlessness, tipping his squeegee
after every-other downward stroke,
coercing the water to run like blood
from each overlapping pass, though
of course he can’t touch my shining
smudges, the smeared prints inside,
seven-eighths of a glinting inch
away.

A bird built that nest from wig bits, or human hair, hard to say. Must
have been some time ago. Before the storm, the bomb, the plague,
whatever it was, who remembers? No bird, no eggs. Just discolored
shell fragments and dried yellow goo. Depressing, don’t you think?
Talk to your therapist about that and watch your step as we crab
through the rubble; keep your beady eyes peeled. Alas, all these
broken bricks put to rest the myth of the third little pig, if you know
what I’m saying. maybe not. We tend to speak in metaphors these
days, thus disguising our duplicity, confusion, and scorn. Everything
doesn’t have to mean something, though everything usually does. You
want the meaning of life? That’s it, in a nutshell, hombre. Keep
moving, don’t stop. Feral dogs have been sighted. They don’t beg for
treats. That monstrosity by the toppled tin water tower used to be a
bridge. That’s right. I once rode my ten-speed over it. Nice view of the
city then. Still kinda nice, if you thin your eyes. That red fork tangled
in the rebar—it used to be a tricycle. Yeah. Another metaphor.