(fine layer of white outside my window. muffled sounds of cars. warm cup in hand.)

i remember making hot cocoa for you once on a day much like today. mixing in more or less precisely the powdery cocoa with solid blocks of chocolate. you asked me for the recipe as you tasted it and i told you it was a secret. you seemed surprised, i think, until i explained that i'd rather make it for you any day than copy down a grocery list of the things you needed to buy. i'd rather hear your voice at the other end of the line years later recalling a cold afternoon in this northen land, than see you pull out an old wrinkled sheet with a few ingredients messily jotted down by a hand whose lines you can no longer recall.

(it's been a long time, i'll need to edit this, um, a milion times.)