“C” Is For Cookie

Jason Koo

Continuity, unfolding, the great eternal Cookie
Can a cookie be “great” in the way a poem or dinner can be great?
My love, she thinks her cookies are “great”
But I am having trouble distinguishing them from all the other cookies I have eaten

I go to her house, demand an explanation
Why are you not seeing me? Answering my phone calls? Emails? Text messages?
I am running out of tinier messages to send you
She says, I am on sabbatical from the world
But soon we are making cookies and by cookies I do not mean sex

I do not remember any great cookies from my childhood
I often feel this lack when I go to supermarkets
I browse the cookie aisle and nothing seems ideal
A cookie cookie
Soft Batch, Chips Ahoy, is this what we mean by a cookie?
A cookie should have all of childhood and kindness in it should go perfectly with
..... a glass of warm light

My love supplies me with ingredients marches me off to the store
We are going to make “The Greatest Cookie Ever”
But I am wondering if she really wants to make this cookie or is just suggesting it
..... out of procrastination and pity
I go to the store she calls her boyfriend long-distance who does not know we are
..... making cookies
And by cookies he would think sex

“I know trouble and its name starts with an ‘S’!”
Well, I know goodness and its name starts with a “C”

How to explain this feeling of continuity
Feet stepping on a sidewalk at dusk treading light
Drives, leaves, the universe expanding in throes all around you
Music brooming, sweeping
Shakespeare echoing in the trees That time of year thou mayst in me behold
..... when yellow
Leaves, or none, or few do hang
Upon those boughs
Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds
Sang love in your ears love baking inside of you a tray of warm cookies
Wanting to split a chewy cookie with her over
A small white plate, guitars, porchlights, banks of twilight flowing
By, oaring, oaring, everything an oaring, canoes of continuity and cookies

Making cookies requires an incredible amount of batter
My love throws in eggs and chocolate chips spends hours grating Hershey bars
But time unfolds with us rather than transpires
We laugh discover each other continually keep throwing in more chips

The boyfriend calls she goes into the other room
I leaf through a box of old photographs in every one of them she is drinking
Red plastic cups and strange men
She looks young and vulnerable like someone I once knew she is about to get her
..... heart exploded

“I love you so much too”
She comes back into the kitchen, looks at me I look at her
Can a cookie be “great” in the way a love can be great?

I shake my head, say, No, I’m not going to say it tonight
She smiles, stirs the batter, says, I love
Cookies

Copyright © Jason Koo