Author: [[Amy Argentar]] --- # Performance notes *like where the wild things are vibes, spiral-y, a little sinister, like a runaway train* # Maple Donut Haibun *An origin story* “This tastes like God made it herself / I want to hold it on my tongue forever” / I say to you / conjuring picture-book origin story / of this $6 thing / with teeth marks in its side / the empty I made slowly showering crumbs to concrete / Begin: / Tree sap runs rivers around its mother trunk / like an escaped animal / never supposed to be released / and never learned how to escape / a monstrosity / of syrupy proportions / when looked at from above / God saw a hurricane / the green eye at the center / leaves / everything thunderous / uprooted from the ground / branches spoked out like veins / the storm itself / homeless on the ground / just a thing plastered to the soil / left alone as the sun falls / left to decay / left to let the soil grow soiled with its sorrow / just a thing from the sky / that never got a chance / to really let gravity have its way / with it / congested teardrop droplets / constipated angry postpartum birth mother / or whatever it is / that creates storms / in the first place / the thing is / the tree cried and we took its tears / never got a chance to let them / drip / away from its center / and return the new sweetness back down / replacing its centuries-long pain from the bottom / up / but we took them before it had / the chance / to grieve / rather / we formed / a drain / another kind of spiral / another thing that leads to a nothing / just like this story / all I do is hope / it sticks / now it’s all sticky / all of it / sticky in the way the crumbs linger on the edge of my top lip / sticky in the way I thought sun rays would feel / when I drew them in preschool / yellow crayon trail / I could touch / and forget about / later / like how you forget about anything / once you launch it to the sky / and let it tornado forever / so far / above / never / coming back / so when I look down at this pastry / cupped in my hands / I remember how fragile we become when told / to bury / instead of / strike lightning / I think of how it’ll all flake off / of us regardless / I hold this pastry / and I wish for all my grief to leak out / straight from the root / a downpour sweeter than rain / mouth open / and I have no choice but to call it communion  Another spiral I can’t avoid / Another center I can’t reach.