Ebinger’s Chocolate Blackout Cake
By Colorado State Poet Robert Cooperman
Narrated by Roger Netzer
Ebinger’s Chocolate Blackout Cake
Whenever I’d tell Beth
about those dark chocolate-
mocha-delicious cakes,
she’d roll her eyes, thinking
I was being hyperbolic, again,
since exaggeration is what poets
deal in, when we’re not lying.
But then a friend from the old
Brooklyn neighborhood visited,
and we got to talking about
those blackout cakes, and later
while Beth and I lay in bed,
she confided, “It was like
you two were seeing angels.”
Now, another friend has found
the original recipe, and I stare
at a photo of the cake. Next I know
I’m remembering Dad sauntering in
on my or Jeff’s birthday, carrying
a cake box, laughing: holding off
us wolf cubs, and teasing,
“Who do you love more,
this cake, or me?”
We may’ve been young,
but not stupid.