God is standing over the kitchen counter
leaning downward just a little,
his feet cold on the black and white checkerboard floor.

he reaches forward,
grasping his weathered hands
slowly around the sides of a
tin metal can
labeled with the plain letter “S.”

he picks up the sugar can
and sighs quietly, breathing in the scent of vanilla and cinnamon.
Shake Shake Shake
goes the can, and for the next three minutes,
a continuous line of small particles are
falling,
escaping,
landing with an imperceptible “plink!”
on the surface of the just-baked
cream-colored cookies.

God is making sugar cookies again.

Here, it is snowing.

I walk to class along the * * *
sugar-dusted ground,
breathing in the sweet scent of life,
imagining so well the sensation of
a fresh-baked cookie that I can
taste God’s afternoon baking in my mouth.