I remember when the world had more vivid colors than it does now.
When my mother was twice as tall as I was.
When kickball lasted until the streetlights came on
or until someone ran into the tree that we used as home plate
and no one could talk them out of going home.

Sometimes we would come home to sticky buns.

Warm bread and sticky glaze made for a maple-flavored mess,
spread across the face and hands of four children.
ALL dirt sticks to children who have just eaten sticky buns.

Dirt or not, I remember the way we looked forward to them.
I also remember the look on my mother's face
every time she made them, as if burdened by a weight
that children were not aware of.

Many years later, I know how they're made.
A simple recipe, made for children's taste:
pre-made biscuits (from the cans that explode)
cooked until golden, then drizzled with maple syrup
and left to bake for just a few-  more-       minutes.

The perfect blast of sugar for energy-wasting children.

Such a simple recipe was surely born in desperation.
In retrospect, I know that look upon my mother's face as pain:
once, in lieu of dinner, she poured syrup over biscuits.
To cook the only food we had.

Every time we called for sticky buns,
she was reminded of our poverty.

Yet still she obliged,
cooking up sticky buns for her kids,
who knew not what poverty meant,
yet were formed under its rule
with sticky hands and ***** faces.