(for Yahna Solowiej)
We need to cut down the sugar, the Golem says, her right hand a scythe and her left hand a jar.
Moderation is so inhumane, she explains, taking another bite.
One thing is meeting the brittle stars after escaping from a cardboard box for cookies.
But quite another thing is making lists of ingredients that are not true.
I don’t get most people, the Golem adds, with a full mouth and a shaking head.
My favorite human thing is freezing the thin mints, I say.
The gluten-free options are promising, the Golem responds, wiping her face with a sleeve.
It’s interesting how you document these conversations, and how we arise, isn’t it, she asks.
I miss cookie dough ice cream, I respond.
Remember that place on the corner with hazelnut sorbet and wine gelato, I continue.
Oh yes, she says, as well as I remember when you stopped using question marks in our poems.
What Happened Next
This year, we’ll order a bunch of rituals and give them away, the Golem says.
Good plan, I nod in agreement.
There are so many ways to blend in, but we prefer to fold our butters with the outsiders.
Diane R. Wiener is the author of the poetry collection, The Golem Verses, and the poetry chapbook, Flashes & Specks. Her poems also appear in Nine Mile, Wordgathering, Tammy, Queerly, The South Carolina Review, Welcome to the Resistance: Poetry as Protest, and elsewhere. Diane’s creative nonfiction appears in Stone Canoe, Mollyhouse, and The Abstract Elephant Magazine. Her flash fiction appears in Ordinary Madness; short fiction is forthcoming in A Coup of Owls. Diane is Editor-in-Chief of Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature and Assistant Editor of Nine Mile Literary Magazine. Website: https://dianerwiener.com/. Twitter: @DianeWorms. IG: @fuzztux. Diane’s poems in this Kalonopia anthology honor and celebrate Marvin Bell’s Dead Man poems.