Yesterday I mixed the past and egg whites
in the kitchen. Yesterday the Kitchen Aid
aided all my measures, churning. Yesterday I split
the crew and forced them to assimilate in bowls.
I sugared rims. I salted wounds. Yesterday I made enough
to batter over all protests. I lorded over cupcake cups.
I force fed yellow mix to polka dotted folds:
those upsidedowny skirts. I shoved it in the oven,
prayed. My efforts puffed, then puffed again,
resulting in collapse. My molten offering. Yesterday
I made the same mistake as days before but faster,
yesterday I read how long you beat the batter:
beat until it’s quick. Beat until it’s just mixed.
Beat until your arm is stiff and you forget.
Beat until it beats you back, bubbled up, refusing
proper form. Today the dog licks shrapnel from the floor.

Emily Pérez is the author of House of Sugar, House of Stone, and the co-editor of the forthcoming anthology, The Long Devotion: Poets Writing Motherhood. A CantoMundo fellow and Ledbury Emerging Critic, her work has appeared in RHINO, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Copper Nickel, and Fairy Tale Review. She is a high school teacher in Denver where she lives with her family.