Thick and sweet,
The frosting on the roof of my mouth.
So when you asked the question—
            I wasn’t as surprised as I seemed.
            I wasn’t as anxious as you perceived.
            I wasn’t sad about any superficial thing:
                        No longing was lurking in the silence of my pause.
                        No mirror in my mind was reflecting wrinkles or graying hairs.
                        No regrets of misspent youth were reverberating near the surface,
                                    Waiting to be given voice, an apparently decrepit one at that.
            I could see in your sweet young eyes, in that shortest instant,
            a glimmer of misbegotten sympathy: Oh, how old and pitiful she must feel!
I couldn’t answer until I’d freed my mouth of its shackles, the buttercream:
“If this is what 30 tastes like, bring it on.”