Baking Cookies of Myself

by Tom Busillo

My Italian grandmother taught me how to bake. She’d start by taking out a large wooden cutting board and tossing flour on it as if preparing for a sacred ritual. Then, she’d lay me face up on the board and flatten me with a rolling pin until I was thin enough to cut. With the star-shaped cookie cutter, she’d punch out tiny chunks of me, placing them on a greased baking sheet to bake in the warm embrace of the oven. She’d carry me, still on the board, over to its door, and I’d watch in wonder as the cookies browned and rose. Despite my pleas, she always insisted they cool before I could eat one. We repeated this throughout the afternoon until all that was left of me was my mouth and a ribbony outline of my former body. When the final batch had cooled, she would start feeding them back to me so I could be whole again. Usually around this time, my grandfather would come in the back door with his two dogs after tending to his garden. He’d snatch a handful of cookies from the plate—parts of me, not yet returned—and start to eat them. My grandmother would hit him with a wooden spoon, telling him those weren’t for him, but it would be too late. Parts of me had been lost, and it is for this reason that I remain the size of a child.

Tom Busillo's (he/his) writing has appeared or is forthcoming in McSweeney's, PANK, The Broadkill Review, and elsewhere. He is a Best Small Fictions nominee and is the author of the unpublishable 2,646-page conceptual poem "Lists Poem," composed of 11,111 nested 10-item lists. He's now focusing on much shorter work. He lives in Philadelphia, PA.