CAKE
by Kirsten Smith

He comes in late to buy an eclair.
He claims to be
a physics student on sabbatical
but you're pretty sure
he's a hobo on holiday.
You are the baker's daughter.
He's the wrong kind of boy
for a cream-puff like you
but you love his eyes,
the color of pickles,
you love his hands,
which have never kneaded anything.
When you kiss, your head fills
with Xs and Ys, not teaspoons and half-cups.
You want him to cover your kitchen
with Newton's Second Law,
you want him to make every pie a love pie,
you want him to sneak inside your stove,
burn the gingerbread,
collapse the strudel,
change the cakes from something sweet
into slices of the forbidden--
tell-tale icing
on the lip of someone
who says they don't eat cake
and then secretly devours it whole.