after Jennifer Jackson Berry
Who hasn’t carved a fork
through a cut of cake and tasted
dollar store crowns, neon streamers,
wind-up toys coruscating on the rug
like confetti, tune of our skittering
shoes, fingers hooked to scoop
jam from the sandwiches, thumbs plump
as blackberries in our wild, wagging
mouths—those honeyed years
before I understood my body’s struggle
against the morning’s golden net.
Now, the patterned progress of neighbors
through the day’s long maw goes grayscale
and the nearby train scrambling the tracks
hums like static. My partner slabs
his tongue inside me, layers each lick
like strips of papier-mâché. I should tell him
there’s no use, but instead pour ink-like
to the fridge for another bite of cake,
feel, finally, like a bird’s nest, its delicate dip
of twig and twine, slip a new gown
of frosting on my tongue, hope what sugars
stays long enough for one of us to taste it.
Diamond Forde is a PhD candidate at Florida State University. She received an MFA in Creative Writing at The University of Alabama. She is a Callaloo and Tin House fellow. Her work has appeared in Massachusetts Review, Ninth Letter, BOAAT, The Offing, and elsewhere. Her manuscript, Unlocking the Door, was a finalist for the 2019 Georgia Poetry Prize.
