A Financial Planner Asks About My Goals, or Golden Shovel with Cardi B’s “Money”

Never touch-starved again, forever a chub-bellied baby sexed big

Skin a heatmapped catalogue of hands still wet still grasping still blood-fat

Behind every steam-slammed door, playplush beds as good as checks

Whole home stitched with only these rooms, only this near-rip big

Kitchen table perfect island for the stranding, meals propped heaven-large

Backyard a honey-dripped grove named Eden, ripe land of no bills

Whatever drops first, spice-adorned, sauce slicked back-to-front

Splayed open slow, tempting a spill, grateful to be devoured like I’ll

Make my giggling groommates, spit-tethered hips churned tender flip

Down smeared-open mouths or whole wedding cakes or any drown we like

Just measure by the fistful how thick this slick can coat a sigh, add ten

And that’d be balm enough to dizzytrip my lonely and her cartwheels

Copyright © by Kemi Alabi. This poem originally appeared in Poetry, December 2020. Used with permission of the author.