A Wedding Cake

Jeffrey Donaldson
From:   Waterglass. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1999.

If memory's food alone would ever do
to satisfy the appetites of love,
we'd simply eat our cake and have it too.

We had a thought, to send away with you
a slice of nuptial torte, so you might have
memorable food that all alone would do

to keep that chat with Pal, the dance with Stew
in lasting mind. What were we thinking of?
You cannot eat your cake, and have it too.

Think sticky pulp, cream icing, doily-shoe
tied with a ribbon, rainbowed white and mauve.
Remembering the food, alone, would do!

But it's gone the very moment you are through,
and nothing left to put away, nor prove
that you could eat your cake and have it too.

Take this instead--upon our word--in lieu
of the vanished crumb. Let its hunger give
to the memory-feast alone its lasting due,
and love will eat its cake. Have it too.

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Jeffery Donaldson's works copyright © to the author.