The Moon Is Cake

by Madeleine Corley

---

I want to keep it 
in my gift shop
on a crystal tray
beside travel books
and blueberry scones.
It’ll be too large,
at first, to float 
under my grand- 
mother’s glass cake 
dome, so I’ll slice 
and serve its craters 
paired with loose leaf teas. 
And after the local paper 
writes my story, The Woman 
Who Serves The Moon, 
the news will syrup the nation. 
Tourists will flock, marveling 
the icing before I carve them
their own bite. Everyone 
will tell me what flavor 
they taste: finished novel, 
new baby, one last conversation 
with their brother. Months pass 
and the moon shrinks in size, 
nights growing darker each week. 
The crowds begin to dissipate.
When the last few inquire 
what it is I taste, I tell them 
plane tickets, new books, 
maybe a free week - a lie
to leave out the sour 
aftertaste, how I know nothing 
will ever make me full.

---

Madeleine Corely (she/her) is a writer by internal monologue and needs to stretch more. She currently serves as Poetry Editor at Barren Magazine. Her work has appeared at Emerge Lit, Rejection Lit, Knights Library Mag, Plum Recruit, and more. You can find her on Twitter @madelinksi and wrotemadeleine.com