Grandpa draws in chocolate cursive,
Happy Birthday to you.
Green frosting frogs hop across the cake.
Happy Birthday to you.
He presents his cheesecake, pure and perfect.
Happy Birthday, dear Natalie.
This melody fills the air.
Happy Birthday to you.
She extinguishes the lights.
Grandpa cuts the cake, placing triangle pieces on paper plates.
Fluffy cream frosting fills her belly.
Natalie, 6-years-old,
feels sugar soar
through her body.
Her sticky fingers
glue together.
The love of her family
soothes her sweet soul.
Grandpa’s German bakery, beaten, and bombed during
the Nazi invasion of 1939,
leaving him with nothing
but memories and recipes.
He escaped a cruel concentration camp,
his recipes immigrated across the sea.
He build a buoyant bakery in America.
Grandpa’s recipe now a gift
to Natalie on her birthday, 18-years-old.
Happy Birthday to me.