Mom's Treasure Box by Vanessa Pham

Mom's Treasure Box

by Vanessa Pham

I search for chocolate chip cookies

in your old recipe box.

Among the sea

of magazine clip-outs

and fancy picture cards

of Russian rainbow teacakes

and glittery fruit slice cookies,

I find a picture

of my fourth birthday cake -

a clown bedecked

with an M&M party hat,

a collar to match

and a gum-drop nose.

Clown cakes don't just happen, after all.

A hand-written recipe

pokes above the commercial cards.

"Banana Nut Bread" on notebook paper

written in your hand.

I spy another in your hand,

"Coffee Cake."

You hated coffee.

I find more folded notebook papers

written by you.

I pull another,

and another,

hungrily unfolding them like candy wrappers,

smelling the paper,

consuming your handwriting, savoring the memory of your recipes -

treasures I hadn't tasted

in at least nine years,

planning to bring them to life again

with flour and sugar.

I wish it were that easy

to do with you.