Marzipan

by Diane Funston

The pastry held no visual memory.

Round, flat, sugar-iced,

upheld on a crystal platform,

cut into rustic triangles,

dessert after literary repast.

After the first taste, memories melted

as a moist dense almond filling

from the flaky butter shell broke,

sugar coating cracked,

mixed together, like old photographs

in a newly unstuck drawer.

After the third sneaky slice,

I was lost in grandmothers kitchen,

at my old vinyl upholstered chair,

coffee time in late afternoon,

sharing of conversation,

of rich almond pastry,

of childhood upheld,

sugar-coated after fifty years.

I ate dessert first