Dinner Party: She Comes to the Door
MADDIE BARONE
I
When my mother arrives, she brings cake,
pink and over frosted,
icing spilling down her arms, covering
the veins of her hands, wrinkles knitting
a pattern against her wrist. It wears her face.
Bug-eyed and gulping, teeth mismatched or
sharpened. Her head just a cloud swaying.
II
A soft covering of mist
where her nose
should be.
III
When she speaks, it’s the cake
that moves its little mouth. When she sings,
the cake picks up the harsh melody.
IV
She’s uninvited but knows
this house better than anyone.
Its shutters rusted over and shut, it
pants open mouthed or snarled
as we stand in the doorway.
V
We lean our heads against the siding.
The shadows emerge as a sweet
casting of shade.
VI
It’s her birthday. There is only
us. Two halves of the same staring
at the floor. Our reflections curved back
splintered and rearranged.
VII
I think
I wear her eyebrows. Her lips.
VIII
In the corner of my eye, the door
elongates. It stretches up through
the second floor, the roof. It slams
and shakes our feet gone cold.
IX
Really, the street shouts. Why go through all this
trouble? The sidewalks shake their cracked
spines, rattle their spilling gums. Everything
is just dirt and the house won’t stop howling.
It tries to slam the door. It tries to shutter
itself closed.
X
The street goes silent in sympathy.
XI
She says she’s brought the cake for us
to share. She’s always
thinking of me. She needs me
to know this.
XII
I am trying to tell her to sit down.
To watch the wind roll
into clouds and send us scattering.
She has her hand up
against mine.
She keeps looking at the cake.
XIII
Spilling down her arms, a paste. A sweet
sticky glue puddled by my feet, egg washed and
faintly floral. It seems to follow me around.
It’s in the kitchen by the knives.
It’s in the living room sitting in her favorite
seat, patterned paisley.
XIV
It’s in the ceiling
watching me put away
the rotted flowers.
XV
It’s in the car when I try to leave.
XVI
If I close my eyes, she
leaves an imprint, a long
hollow note left pricking my
palms. I feel her in my hands
flexing in the space she leaves
behind, fingers bent to hold
the knife to cut the cake to share
in this house that no longer belongs
to either of us.
XVII
Freckled
and frowning, we put the cake
to our mouths. It tastes of sugar
gone cold. Of strawberries picked
and then left in the yard.
XVIII
She watches me lock the door.
She is standing in the yard begging
for the key.
XIX
Like a glass window, she pushes
her face right up
to the clear of my eye.
XX
Like a window, she tries
to crack me open.
MADDIE BARONE is a queer poet living in the Southern United States. Their work has appeared in The Madison Review, Miracle Monocle, Pedestal Magazine, and elsewhere.
