The Best Cake Recipe Ever

by Tatiana Miranda

​Earthenware, glaze, resin, matte oil paint, synthetic hair,

weaved material, found objects, fabric wooden beads.

Chastity Williams sculpts, bakes a female face.

Lips coated with glaze, shiny; spit coating them.

Stretched wide, hungry for something in the distance.

Ecstasy in her eyes; rolled back, back. Back!

Skin flushed champagne pink. Vibrant rouge smeared across

her cheeks. Infection scattered like sprinkles.

Gray, white, glazed, matte.

A pox? A plague?

The plague consumes.

Hidden in hair, a barren filling, and

a cracked mind, unseen to the partygoers.

Elaborate décor to distract them.

Strands intricately woven, reminiscent of a beheaded queen.

“Let them eat cake!”

It tempts her, inches away from her mouth.

Sticky, sweet. Mouth watering with the thought of a taste.

What is it that she longs for? A cure? A slice? New

jewelry and adornments for her hair?

Singular braid wrapped with ribbons and knick-knacks.

A stolen relic from the Wisconsin Indians.

Titled “Heart Heat 1.” The heat of her heart was

350 Fahrenheit, as Betty Crocker had instructed.

I take a bite of her skin, clay coating

my tongue. Glaze cracking between human teeth.