My wife makes the cookies every year in the holiday run,
she starts at eight in the morning and she’s barely done,
by the time the sun goes down and the kitchen’s a wreck,
of flour and the sprinkles and the cooling rack’s check,
of seventeen different varieties on four trays wide,
the snickerdoodle and the gingerbread inside,
the peanut butter thumb and the sugar cookie round,
the holiday cookie situation has been found.
I am the quality control through the baking day,
which means I eat one of every kind along the way,
to confirm the recipe and the cooking time were right,
the quality control position requires this right,
this is not optional, this is the professional duty,
of the man adjacent to seventeen cookie varieties’ beauty,
I’ve eaten twenty-six cookies by three in the afternoon,
which the quality control position has accounted for, immune.
Holiday cookie situation, seventeen kinds arrayed,
holiday cookie situation, the quality assayed,
by the man with the critical palate and the standing jurisdiction,
holiday cookie situation and the voluntary conviction,
to eat each one with the dedicated evaluation’s care,
holiday cookie situation, flour in the air,
the kitchen’s a cathedral and the cookies are the choir,
holiday cookie situation, the annual desire.
My wife tolerates the quality control function,
with the knowing look of a woman at the junction,
of exasperation and the genuine amusement,
at a man who finds in every holiday’s amusement,
the opportunity to eat more than the stated need,
she slides me a fresh snickerdoodle and I feed,
on it before the rack has cooled, she says,
those need two minutes, I say the quality says.
By six that evening the kitchen’s full of the finished tins,
the cookies packed for neighbors and the family begins,
to arrive and everything gets passed around the table wide,
I eat seven more because the family’s is the pride,
of the quality control position in the public eye,
where I demonstrate my findings to the age,
and knowledge of my assembled relatives with flair,
the holiday cookie situation fills the winter air.
The cookie tins go to the neighbors and the friends at work,
the quality control position has one final perk,
the broken cookies and the ones that didn’t make,
the cut for distribution get to stay and take,
their rightful place in the personal reserve,
the broken cookie plate is what I most deserve,
at the end of the holiday cookie situation’s run,
I eat the broken ones, the quality is done.