Self-Portrait/Cherry Vareniki

The waiter serves you a child on a plate—
A tiny thing, spilling insides bright as berries.
She is dead, of course she is dead,
But you eat her anyway
To savor that mouth-twisting sourness,
That doughy skin so sweet
As to sting the roots of your molars.
You pause your chewing, waiting for the next,
Waiting for the chef to slice up another daughter.
You are met with a walking childhood
Dish—a woman so taken with herself that
She will not sit next to you.
She is better than you, this woman,
In every way you can think of—
You watch from across the table as she steals
The last varenik from your plate,
Pops it into her perfect mouth,
Crushes the plump cherries with her teeth.
She asks if you have seen her
Daughter and you double over,
Retching across the cutlery, clutching the tablecloth—
The woman has cut you open with her fingernails,
Baring your guilty insides.
You are not fearless—
You will cry and beg for another chance, another taste,
And she will laugh the way that mothers do,
With her hands and not with her eyes—
She will pick up the fork you never used and puncture your
Small intestine to suck out the last of her daughter’s dark hair
And you will let her, of course you will let her.
You loved that child, too.