Kronski

At  your fourth birthday party lace dark, candlelight through holes in Chantilly lace. You and an old man standing in front of a chocolate cake, white butter cream frosting, white writing, ADAM in sugar, four candles for you, and a respectful lack of candles for him. He is old enough that you can feel the days he's lived float through him when he hugs you right there in front of the family taking pictures that you will one day create this memory from. His age, and the influence in all who has his posture, his smell, and the slow way he takes his glasses off and wipes them off with a handkerchief.

This old man is related to pilgrims, the beginning of this country, and here now, on the year of the bicentennial, to you at that moment, your whole world is candle flicker through lace, old man soft broken leather hands, flashes of smiles, dots of bright light, reflected off of all the glasses in the room, the pistachio pants your mom wears, her hair up in a beehive.