Revisionist Poetry – The Cookie in the Icebox, v.2 (a.k.a. My Relationship with a Cookie, v.5)

I hold the cookie like a coin pried from a grave.

Its skin is paper; chips sit like fossil teeth.

They glint — dull embers in brittle sugar.

Beneath: a warm hollow where molasses whispers.

One bite would split it open, spill its secret.

Violence buries; devouring is a small grave.

I nibble instead, ceremonial, patient.

The cookie will not give its marrow to rough hands.

Starved, I hear it breathe — a private, slow sound.

I wrap it in waxed paper, lay it in the cold chest.

At night the icebox sings; from jarred light a moth-heart beats.

I press a shard to my tongue — warmth, not food, but oath.

The rest I keep like a relic; my mouth thereafter tastes of threat.