A Perfect Day for Bananacake

Jennifer Stitt

Sunlight slanting across a body of water. photo credit: Jennifer Stitt

What really exists?

Not things made or unmade. Only
things in-the-making. Only things un-
caged. Silently springing

into the second stretch, you’re four minutes in,
& then the static heat of summer sizzles, & then
the lengthening light leans slant

across the kitchen tile. You are baking
your sorrow into sticky ribbons
of sugar & butter & farm eggs.

A perfect day for bananacake.

But not for the beach—
not unless you’re a god-damned sneak
who has a secret desire for a drowning.

The last yolk breaks
in the glass.
Six bananas, flour sifted, vanilla, sea salt,

a dash of quiet trauma.

Mixing memory & desire,
you stir your grief into the batter & try not
to think of him, lying in bed, going under,

breathless & alone.

 Jennifer Stitt is a historian of modern American thought, culture, and politics. She earned a B.A. and M.A. in history from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and is a Ph.D. candidate in U.S. intellectual history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her writing has appeared in Aeon, Aura Literary Arts Magazine, Essay Daily, Guernica, On Being, Public Seminar, and other places. She is currently working on a book about the history of solitude.