My Daddy dies and I immediately launch a cake
into the firmament, but not before taking a big bite.
The person filming Daddy’s funeral flips their phone
sideways and jokes about the panorama required
to capture a lion’s mane. The way nothing is wide
enough to capture this fat coffin. Under me lies
a body ready for worms. Above me circles a spirit
who resists this dimension and its claustrophobia.
Each day, I have the same problem: rationing insulin
and estrogen. If only my body were an aperture
for the things I desire to store. If only Daddy retained
his sight and avoided the embarrassment of confusing
an expensive t-shirt for a washcloth. The mirror’s
small-space ego is too obvious when I Ooo La La
at the weight I’ve lost, the inches my hair has grown.
The day I confused the squeak of an undertaker’s
wheelbarrow for a giggle is the day I realized grief
is overwrought with the promise of intimate pain.
I’m always thinking of Darwish: This grave isn’t your
grave. Everything reveals itself to me in candy stores.
Notably, the gore of chewing clumps of black licorice
the size of toes.
