Breakfast of Champions

By TINA CANE

I woke up in a panic     this morning thinking     what if my love language 

is granola?     I found a quiz online     but was too chicken to take it     having had 

Russian bots once read      my face and place me     alongside a woman     holding a mango 

or some bullshit in Gaugin     
                                                    nothing exotic for me     today 

for breakfast I’ll take     a reflection on absurdity     short order/whiskey down     

something like redemption     offered by a father     whose vanished mind failed     

to recognize his own son     at the wheel of their car     how the father’s approving nod     

freed the son from     
                                   whatever     forgiveness 

goes both ways     let’s just say     I’ve discovered I know     how to hold a grudge     

call me brittle     call me nuts even     but wouldn’t you rather     call me honey     

or sweetness in the morning     the giving the giving     the words the words     

what if my one and only love     is language itself     lonely prospect     but O 

affirmation     sweet breakfast of champions     grab a spoon and eat me up

Tina Cane serves as the poet laureate of Rhode Island, where she is the founder and director of Writers-in-the-Schools, RI. Cane is the author of The Fifth Thought, Dear Elena: Letters for Elena Ferrante, Once More with Feeling, and Body of Work. She was a 2020 Poet Laureate Fellow with the Academy of American Poets and is the creator/curator of the distance reading series Poetry is Bread. Her new collection,Year of the Murder Hornet, is forthcoming from Veliz Books, and her novel-in-verse for young adults, Alma Presses Play, was released in September 2021.

[Purchase Issue 23 here.]