Bricolage

You had said you wanted to get to the century 
mark, blow several breaths to snuff a hundred 

candles out. Pink melted wax would form 
little buds afterwards on the creamy surface 

of a sheet cake, as crumpled Christmas gift wrappers 
littered the living room floor. We couldn’t see that future—

only one in which we knew someone would prop a framed 
picture of you on the kitchen counter, behind a plate 

with spoonfuls of food and a shot glass of water. Yesterday, 
someone asked what it might mean to inherit an architecture 

of ruins. That future has come. More than ever we are 
stewards of ravaged sanctuaries—we could fill them 

with sugar and salt, the reek of dried mushrooms;  
grains we carefully measure as our mothers look on.