Birthday Cards and Cupcakes

early morning los angeles coffee and cupcakes
twenty dollar bills and birthday cards twenty-three
years later after countless dirty diapers and Harvard
degrees in no particular order.
she rises with the sun, tossing her curls towards
New Zealand, shuffles out in pink slippers to
read the New York Times, what does Paul Krugman
have to say, or maybe Maureen Dowd, maybe a new
posting on Le Poeme, CarboConfidential or some
other nugget, the smell of coffee fills her nose
life is good at twenty-three.