and start again from the beginning —
this old cake from the back of the freezer
has a rancid aftertaste, first made
in a pre-reconstruction oven.
I used to think the answer was
finding better ingredients for the icing,
but it’s a whole new cake we need
with abolitionist-ground flour, reparations folded in
a new genesis, a reckoning, a from-scratch remake.
Those cakes in the windows of bakeries
made of cardboard, glitter, and glue
are make-believe monuments to falsetto ideals,
dusty mouse droppings litter their insides,
require breaking or burning in a dumpster fire.
It hurts too much, everyone living
inside a towering paper cake behind glass,
layers of caustic Caucasia baked into the crumb.
I am learning slowly to listen with humble ears,
to slice through the layers, break down, recreate.
As first published in Cathexis Northwest Press, Jan - Feb 2023