Poem 33

I hope all is well with you and yours. Thanks for reading. I have nothing much to preface this poem.
I can never figure out where to look when people are singing happy birthday. I assume you're supposed to look at the cake.

Birthday Cake

Even without a wish
she waited through
the song, not sure where to look.
Fourteen people in the two-bedroom
with the lights silent,
the room shivered,
our song fluttering 32 candles.
We knew more volume than key
and fought each other for notes
somehow agreeing at the end
that F would cue a year
full of things we wished for her:
promotion and marriage,
a new car.
Her breath escaping
the wrapping of her lungs,
she blew out most,
then all of the glow.
As night leapt in
from the corners,
we cheered the arrival of dark
before the host
flapped on the kitchen light
and rattled the drawers
for a good knife.