The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: "I Want To Eat So Many Kinds of Cake With You" by Kelly Lorraine Andrews

“Hot Dog Wedding”

At the wedding I eat
hot dogs without a bun
eat so many I’m beyond
full and not even thinking
about the absurdity
of hot dogs at a wedding
not even after your mother
tells me you two are moving
to New Amsterdam, you found
a place there that allows
little dogs, perfect for your
min-pin and I almost choke
on the grilled skin, but it’s no
surprise, really, you moving
so fast with someone new.
What’s strange is I can’t stop
with the hot dogs, I mean,
it’s been years since I’ve had one
but more importantly, I realize
I would never sit calmly
while you read aloud vows,
surely I’d make a scene
and one more dramatic
than grease dribbling
down my chin.

When I text a friend
about the dream later
I spell it “hut dogs”
an accurate representation
and just one example of many
things I mispronounce—
lieberry, birt-day, keller
for color but refusing to say
warsh like my mother.
And I know that New Amsterdam
isn’t really a place but a bar
in Lawrenceville and you
aren’t even dating anyone
but I woke up at 4 a.m. pissed
not because I dreamt
you were getting married
but because you probably
would have hot dogs
at your future wedding.

This selection comes from the poetry collection I Want To Eat So Many Kinds of Cake With You, available from Dancing Girl Press. Order your copy here.

Kelly Lorraine Andrews‘ poems have appeared or are forthcoming in PANK, Prick of the Spindle, SELFISH, and Love Me, Love My Belly, among others. She is the author of the chapbooks The Fear Archives (forthcoming, Two of Cups Press), My Body Is a Poem I Can’t Stop Writing (forthcoming, Porkbelly Press), I Want To Eat So Many Kinds of Cake With You and Mule Skinner (both from Dancing Girl Press). She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Pittsburgh. She also coedits the online journal Pretty Owl Poetry and curates its Pittsburgh reading series. Additional information about her publications, along with a slideshow of her cats, can be found at kellyandrewspoetry.com.

Beth Couture‘s work can be found in a number of journals and anthologies, including Gargoyle, Drunken Boat, The Southeast Review, Ragazine, and Thirty Under Thirty from Starcherone Books. Her novella, Women Born with Fur, was published by Jaded Ibis Press in 2014 as part of its Blue Bustard Novellas series. She graduates with her Master’s in Social Work at Bryn Mawr College in May, and she lives in West Philly with her husband and five cats.