Ted Berrigan Baking a Birthday Cake by Mike James

    for John Dorsey 

The first ingredient is one glass bottle of Pepsi
With two sips taken. Also, you will need 
A candy slipper from well before the war. 
It helps if the slipper has been saved in a 
Canning jar, protected by diligent mice 
In a shadowy, spider-filled attic corner. 
An oven is not necessary, but you must 
Have wet mittens and imagine warming 
Them dry over a prairie campfire at dusk.  
There’s a star above a grassy knoll every 
Cowboy is born under. You don’t need to
Know this to bake a perfect cake. Though 
You might need to know this if any tattoo 
On your body references the code of the west.  

Mike James makes his home outside Nashville, Tennessee and has published widely. His many poetry collections include: Red Dirt Souvenir Shop (Analog Submissions), Journeyman’s Suitcase (Luchador), Parades (Alien Buddha), Jumping Drawbridges in Technicolor (Blue Horse), First-Hand Accounts from Made-Up Places (Stubborn Mule), Crows in the Jukebox (Bottom Dog), My Favorite Houseguest (FutureCycle), and Peddler’s Blues (Main Street Rag.) He served as an associate editor of The Kentucky Review and currently serves as an associate editor of Unbroken.