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

Credit

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