We’ll Forever Have Mac n Cheese

From different cities, we came,
and from different lives.
My wife and I, to meet for dinner
on this day, as did we last year,
the year before and the year before that.

We ordered her favorite, both of us.
Mac and cheese with crispy baked
sweet potatoes on the side,
Oreo dirt cups for the finale.
As we did last year, the year before
and the year before that.

But we always started
with her birthday cake.
My wife blew out the one
candle with whatever breathe
she could muster out of
her trembling lips
as I swallowed back my tears
into a hopeless abyss.

The quartet arrived
to sing a customary birthday song.
They looked at us and asked with a smile,
‘Whose birthday are we celebrating today?’
I raised my face toward them,
but stared at light years away
and collected the words.
‘Our daughter’.

My wife held my hand,
We both cried
As we did last year, the year before
and the year before that.