This Poem Is About Cake
by Theodora Goss

If I didn’t care
what the world thought,
I would eat all the cake.

What cake?

I don’t know, any cake.
Every cake. All the cake ever.

But no, I mean what kind of cake
specifically?

Chocolate cake, made
of equal parts flour and cocoa, frosted
with chocolate ganache, as rich
as a miser. Or angel cake, held together
by whipped egg whites and prayer, topped
with glazed strawberries. Or maybe
lemon drizzle, just sour enough
for a summer afternoon in Virginia,
or one of those Viennese tortes
named after Hapsburg princes, basically
layers of coffee cream and walnuts, studded
with history like a museum. Or maybe even
wedding cake with piped icing roses,
like a moonlit garden. Or birthday cake,
or the cake we eat at funerals, a mixture
of sugar, ginger, sad memories,
and pineapple chunks.
Or the cake my mother made
every Christmas.

I would eat it slowly,
slice by delicate slice, until I had eaten all of it.
And then I would start on the next one.

Isn’t that just a bit, I don’t know,
frivolous? You’d spend your entire life
eating cake.

Then let me start over again.
If I didn’t care what you think . . .

(The image is Strawberries and Cakes by John F. Francis.)