Every January, my birthday rolls around
like a miniature moon in the shadow 
of the planet Christmas. My mother 
ices angel food cake, decorates our table 
with two glass rabbits. She pulls china
from cupboards, her thoughtful touch
on everything so that I grow to crave something 
of the host in every celebration, left cold 
by corporate cheese plates and sterile scrolls 
of deli meat. I dodge most invitations—
prefer books, party lights of fireflies 
on Friday nights, their friendly blackouts. 
One year, I’m asked back home to feed 
my grandmother to the ground. The preacher 
speaks of spirits as if we’ve gathered 
for cocktails, but I can see nothing 
of my grandmother in tidy cups of roses. 
She once spooned white clouds of lard,
broke the skinned chicken with her square 
hands. She would have ignited a funeral pyre 
with her spectacles, burned incense of bacon.