someone's birthday cake

flat white-icing playground-oceans
all lined up in the open supermarket fridge
like a map of square states. 
at the Weis bakery it's always someone's birthday.
red icing balloon--red icing rose--
sweet thick yellow cake.
billy & i hover over the fridge
& take guesses about what people might write.
i make up sad things because i like the idea
of icing holding phrases like 
farewell & i hope you come back someday.
the hopeful sibling, billy wants
the cakes to say 
hello & guten tag &
i'm so lucky to know you & 
let us thank god you are here on earth.
i imagine a future where my brother & i
only communicate by sending each other 
messages on cakes.
right then i would hand him one that says 
i wish i saw you more.
we open the lid of one of the sheet cakes
& step one at a time onto its surface.
a great wide sweet expanse of land.
i say we can build a fort
on the far corner near the burst of icing flowers.
together we trek there & i tell him 
a story about how one birthday dad & i got up
at 7am & no one else was up
so we went to the store right then 
& got a cake for breakfast. billy asks 
was i there? & i can't remember.
what is a family but an exchange of faint stories. 
what is a brother but someone 
to sleep beside on your birthday cakes. 
we pretend the icing flowers are a garden 
& we eat them in handfuls.
billy says that he used to never want anything
for his birthday because it seemed selfish.
i do remember that-- years where we 
kept celebrations small & just with family.
i ask him if he regrets it & he doesn't.
i wish i was more like my brother.
when we leave we put a sign on the fort
that reads: gow brothers
just in case it's there still when we return.
i ask my brother 
if he remember my birthday
& he doesn't. i know his, october 21st,
though i'm not sure when i learned it--
there had to have been a moment 
when i committed it to memory.
i tell him july 20th & he repeats it,
saying i won't forget this
we write that on the cake:
i won't forget this. 
i won't forget this.