‘To the Elbows in Rainbow Frosting, I Relive my First Birthday, I Might Be Alive, Be Alive, Be Alive’ by Kari Flickinger

 Speed Racer
by Ann Privateer

To the Elbows in Rainbow Frosting, I Relive my First Birthday, I Might Be Alive, Be Alive, Be Alive

Narcissist—it is three days before
my thirty-seventh birthday. My first 
during the pandemic. The country starves 
and I dream of cake.

I write a short story about a woman who thinks about death 
all the time. She imagines the ceiling fan flying 

off. She watches all the missteps
of a man walking on a sidewalk—
outside. Masked up. Dog leash.

Maintain at least six feet. I go 
to the supermarket and purchase the optimal              single-serving 
cake in the shape of a unicorn.

I imagine myself putting on a lavender party-dress. The glitter 
exacts vengeance on the living-room furniture.

Impractical monster—I place birds in my hair and cry 
for pink icing.

*

All day I wonder if I have already died. 

I think there must be a name for this illness where people imagine themselves as ambling
shades—dead through this world. I refuse 
to google it. I enjoy not knowing, for once.

I think about driving into a grey storm 
on the most inclement road. I imagine             every road from my twenties 
and rapidly 

disappearing thirties in a montage                    with “I Misunderstood” behind it. I think 
the only way that we could 
have ended up in this fraught                           political situation is if I caused it.

A gaslight lights 

I bake                                                              in the August heat. I add Rumor and Sigh 
to my 2020 Playlist on Spotify. Then I add Blue Sky 

Mining from Midnight                          Oil. I imagine 

myself as a young girl
staring at the ceiling from the stained living room carpet, trying to mimic
Peter Garrett, Richard Thompson, Neil Young, Michael Stipe.

*

When I was a child, my mother baked 
wedding cakes—an operation of one 
from our home kitchen—a heavy container 
of always-cold buttercream.

Out of the oven and into the freeze. Then sliced 
—sidelong—the long knife like a glance—top gone.

Anything to reduce the crumb.

My small hands would pilfer sliced bits. 
I would steadily balance
the iced creation on my knee—careful—

I learned how to maintain an evenness that would
leave my personality pliant in the years to come.

Still—even as objects moved around me
came to a stop—a small raise and hold. Drop only
after the acceleration was in half-force.

Somewhere between second and third gear.
Sometimes only motion can negate motion.

Each cake lulled—pull the scraps
when you can—

Dear—that delicate final product is for a woman
who starves herself months in advance.

*

I lose the story about the death-obsessed woman 
in one of the file folders littering my computer screen. 

Before I go to the store, I drive up a nearby hill. 
I haven’t left the house in days, and my car needs love. I recoil 
at the burnt-butter taste of a coffee handed to me 
from a plastic container held by a gloved worker through a drive-thru window. 
I touch my own arm. The bright heat enfolds my little blue car.

Flying mother nature’s silver seed to a new home.
The sun is back at home on a work call.

*

I have tried starving for days
months, years. But I think maybe some women never quite get small 

enough. I wash my hands the recommended number of seconds. 
Three for my heart
ache. Four for my headache. I know 
it’s art for art’s-sake. I can’t take my hands from my face. Rain 
in the valley below. I’m not sure all these people understand.

I dry my hands side by side in orbit; they pine for 
a kaleidoscopic moon.

Now. I am ready.

Being the house expert
in the transportation of cake, I will
carefully pull the cake from the fridge.

Plant one speckled candle. Light it
ablaze. Breathe myself a song.
Delve my arms to the elbows, and I will
paint myself into the sky.

[This piece samples: Neil Young “After the Gold Rush” / Violent Femmes “Kiss Off” / Richard Thompson “Backlash Love Affair” / Midnight Oil “King of the Mountain” / R.E.M. “Nightswimming”]


Kari Flickinger’s writing has been nominated for Best of the Net and the SFPA Rhysling Award. She is an alumna of UC Berkeley.  Find her recent work: kariflickinger.com  @kariflickinger  


Ann Privateer is a poet, artist, and photographer.  She paints out of doors with watercolorists on Wednesdays and with oils at home. Some of her work has appeared in Third Wednesday and Entering to name a few.