You can’t eat your cake and have it, too, says my boyfriendand Ted Kaczynski, turning clichés into bombs. My boyfriendwho is not the Unabomber loves me from 1,300 miles away.We dream over the phone, count the days until our next visit.At Whole Foods before Valentine’s Day, I buy a red velvet cakeI’ll eat alone. A man walks out with a double dozen red roseswrapped in cellophane. I miss my boyfriend. Can I eat my cakeand have it, too? Transposed verbs are what got Kaczynski caught—his use of language, his arcane mind, but he wasn’t wrong.What good is having a cake if you can’t eat it? That clumsyphrase comes straight out of Middle English, straight frommy valentine’s red mouth. He long-distance laughs as I puzzlethe meaning but isn’t that the point?…
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The American Poetry Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, January/February 2024