stranger danger?

Softness

Strange now, making marshmallows

Had not done that for many years

but this year did seem apt to send

some kind of yielding sweetness off across the chilly miles

Who knows if any of us now will meet again

Pandemic pulsing out anew

A monstrous, vicious war that may turn nuclear

Climate crisis — fires, floods — new manifest each dawn

Weather warnings! click-here alerts a morning (mourning) norm

Plus simple, dull, quotidian surprise of looming death

As ever, cannot know who will die next

Younger often struck down first, by cruel surprise

Child before parent, healthy before sick, glad before sad

(and good before bad, good before bad, good before bad)

Though it's pure nonsense, all this endless vaunted shock . . .

should never be surprised by simple shiny fact of death

And so, marshmallows! soft and light and very mail-box-friendly

keep well unchilled, easy to wrap up, to pack

to self-congratulate for kindly, well-considered choice.

Bit hard assembling the needed elements

but technique comes back quick enough, despite six years

Familiar boiling amber syrup climbing up up up in heat

So fast at first, then last ten crucial increments ultra slow

The stream of dark clear high-heat liquid, still a-bubble

tipped thin and smooth into the spinning giddy metal bowl

Entering the vortex jelly there

Whip whipping wildly as dark mix lightens, whitens,

foams and froths and magic swells

Grows great at last, a downy ivory pillow waiting to be plumped

soothed, nestled down inside its proper, gleaming, waiting bed,

bright silver berth smoothed sweet with golden oil

And then . . .you wait, long as you can stand it

makes it better, so they say, ten hours, twelve, or even twenty

Countdown 'til readiness arrives, time to face the final steps. . .

So far, all as recalled, the proper, practiced moves and modes

But somehow, next day, those final, long-awaited acts . . .

denuding of the soft marshmallow slab

the way it sweetly, keenly clings to oiled-up foil as if they're one

then, responding to my gentled touch, slightly, so very slightly

eases off a tiny bit, an inch, lets go so very slow

feels like it will not, can't surrender

needs me, needs pressing help from my two living hands.

urged on, little by little, 'til at long last

the soft yet firm white slab lies naked, curvy, full revealed

Awaiting more anointing, silken sifted cornstarch,

snowy fine, like talcum fluttered from some classic gilt-edged tin

floating down to satin tame the sticky bouncy stuff below

Preparing it for — piercing, slicing, separation

by me, my small sharp silver knife

And as I do all that, each salient step

the easing, pushing, smoothing, pressing, severing

at long last forming plump pale cubes of sweet French bliss

take note of what's at work today in this recaptured Easter prep

Nothing much to do right now with kind provision of sweet treats

Everything to do with me, with my sensations

the scents, the sights, the gentle, penetrating touch

Insisting . . . something — what? that I am sensate?

that I still breathe, move, feel?

That in this no doubt sad dull silent solitary way

am incarnate, still alive . . . ?