A piece of Cake By Kathryn Stripling Byer
When the young woman called from Charlotte to interview me for her radio program asked, “What is a Laureate, anyway?”
as she stands in the heart of her kitchen, the sun sliding into the cornfields, another June day disappearing, another night kindling
I heard my voice hem and haw like a bad line of poetry. I thought I heard all of the Old North State holding its breath while I struggled
its Milky Way stars, and at long last I know how to answer that question. A Laureate
to say something clever, but all I could think of was “lariat.” Then in a moment of quiet desperation, I thought of Laurette,
lassoes the Milky Way, word after luminous word of it, holding it out in her hands
who lives just down the road from my childhood home, hands busy sculpting the icing on each side of her Milky Way cakes
like a piece of Laurette’s chocolate cake, saying,
Try this! Believe me,
You'll like the way poetry tastes!
30 ALBANY | 2020
