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.