Julianna Holshue - To My Dear Little One baking
Spacious embryo,
Born of a monogrammed sweatered father
Unkeen on weaning his sighs, whose lashings of tongue and cheek
Bore through my breast, soaked my heart in butter
until it became fat—
my heart, not your fleshy place of rest under the navel.
I baked a pie for him, a pie
so tart it coughed bile in the morning,
Made my sandals too tight,
My hair too shiny.
The oven was too hot
When the ceramic egg timer buzzed—
I pushed my hand inside too sudden and
burnt my thumb: a hot noose appeared.
I was told to trim the fat,
(By who, I don’t remember)
So I used a knife
To scrape at the burnt caramel on the crust—
Flat as I was once, dark as I am now.
Edited by SofÃa Aguilar (@sofiaxaguilar)

JULIANNA HOLSHUE is a recent Rowan University graduate and an Editorial and Social Media intern at Mango Publishing. She was previously a Media Editor for Glassworks magazine, which is a publication of Rowan University's Master of Arts in Writing. She would love to be an editor and is interested in writing and illustrating her own zines and children's books on the side. When she's not writing, she is listening to the Magnus Archives podcast, supporting independent artists, or thinking about having another cup of tea.