Let me count the ways to infinity. Stare at the sun until you see the Aztec god and his gold crown blinding you. Like that day the dazed young queen marched a thousand steps to oblivion. Heaven was rimmed with blood.
The sun disappears suddenly in a cloud burst of rain and a tiny lizard hides in the leafy dark of a banana tree, feeling suddenly the slight hiss or whisper of something crawling down on him in the dark, the golden coils of a giant snake are glinting, curling down in the slithering dance of Rapunzel’s golden locks.
How long the infinity of fear battling joy, infinity of math, of someone watching snowflakes falling. Infinity is losing yourself in the slow white tumble of the winter sky the line of whales like tiny ducks in the distance fleeing the vast ocean for the open skies.
Infinity is this faded oriental rug– the dull roses, greens, and golds, the dusty footsteps of these eighteen years, the back and forth of front and back. And finally the door into the garden, running still with beating heart, the sound of a robin calling .. spring is always now… summer winter fall the endless spring the endless winter of all things the endless sky of endless moons and stars the endless search of tired eyes.
Someone put a tiny Madonna on a ledge in the abandoned rock formation in the deserted park. A two-inch cobalt blue Madonna it sparks a kind of infinite joy when I walk by and I wave hello save me and goodbye. Then someone takes it down and someone else puts something back. An angel or a tiny Jesus Mary Joseph back and forth and back and forth …the tiny cobalt Madonna is still there….
Infinity are my footsteps in this park two decades now, and it almost feels like infinity almost feels like infinity…the almost there almost there of things is almost lost.
Home has no rooms no windows no doors nothing but the frost thick as Royal icing thick as buttercream thick as curdling milk cooling in the stream thick as icicles forming on the windows of this room.
Winter 2014-15 I felt infinity even more, infinity of sorrow infinity of madness infinity of freezing to death in my own house. I never finished the frost poem my fingers were too cold.
Infinity of shame to see this mess I’m in. When you walked into the kitchen and found bags of sugar, flour, spices, lying dusty on the counter… butter I set out days ago to soften but it was hard as rock in that freezing room… I was about to bake a cake for you….
This house was built in 1939 when infinity was clear, the infinity of nothing infinity of sorrow infinity of misplaced arms and dreams infinity of wrongs never righted infinity of war, yes, the second war was not really a good idea either my dear…
Bang bang bang the oven may break down any day now. You said you saw a flashing “F3” sign that meant fuck you fuck you fuck you. I never heard you swear before, it sounded good. The oven, furnace, fridge and boiler too will all be gone gone soon. Bye Bye.
This cake I want to bake for you, this American cake from the pre or post Civil War I can’t remember now file, of home receipts as they used to be called, from some woman deep in the south who just woke up crying…. Sunshine cake it’s called, or sometimes General Robert E. Lee cake…..he liked lemon and orange too….. She would need a strong constitution, wipe her tears and get up in that freezing room, build a fire and wait three to four hours for the right temperature, scrape down the sugar loaf or cone and beat the sugar and butter for a full hour with her bare hands, but before that she had to soften the butter with her freezing fingers…….. float eggs in water or hold them up to the meager candle to see if they were fresh. Had to check the flour too, sometimes they put in rotting peas or corn or dying little bugs…..
Then then then infinity was new snow was white spring was spring and winter came.
I’ll bake you a cake today infinity cake to show my infinite love for you my infinite joy in the flowers of your soul your brilliant mind your wide open heart your calmness in the face of fire and frenzy and sickness and death misplaced desire the infinity of virus and germs and dirt and war.
My infinity cake my sunshine Civil war cake is like a Randolph Scott cowboy movie. Old and new, pure and dirty, good and evil, totally delicious. Butter, eggs, milk, lemon, orange, vanilla, and Grand Marnier, a remnant of the great bakers post French Revolution who baked sweets after all that fighting… In memory of the ridiculous Kings and Queens who devoured delicate sweet meats, elegant bon bon things, all those sugary daydream nightmare confections in layers and tiers filled with marzipan flowers that got so much better so much more refined after every bloody war…. to sweeten the tolling of the bells for the rolling heads that dropped into your overflowing baskets of weary blondes brunettes and red-heads all wearing the crown of thorns…. the bitter orange flavors will make your head spin your heart beat wildly like an Aztec girl climbing the 1,000 stairs to her death her birth her reign her funeral her baptism her infinite fox trot waltz tango rumba and the grand finale all girl mariachi band laced with flowers and frills and thrills and all of them swaying swooshing rolling their hips back and forth like the seas of Ahab like the lumbering white blue and black leviathans all going for the infinite the ultimate the apocalyptic the great waves of ocean filled with the brit the bric and brac of ocean flowers the ocean is the water the ocean is the sky the ocean is this rolling field of wheat Rapunzel’s golden hair like your dead gold teeth your brilliant smile the sum of all the gold coins all the golden crowns of all the golden gods shining shining.
And Ahab finally gets his whale and the whale finally gets Ahab and you my dear will finally finally get this cake that I have been thinking about dreaming about salivating for pining moaning and groaning and opening wide the big mouth of dripping frozen icicles for… the cake will be golden with lemons and oranges and eggs from sunny bright-eyed chickens and fresh thick cream and milk will flow from golden pitchers washed in the golden streams and liquors from far and wide will perfume each perfect spongy layer, and it will be called Sunshine Cake the cake of smiles and dreams and hopes and joys and you will eat it and you will never ever question infinity again…….
whennothingworks 