At the Hatter’s Table

Abstract

At the Hatter’s Table Robert Carr (bio) Edible. Sometimes. CoolWhip, dream whip, buttercream, butter stick, sweet and sour, fruitspread, cocoa on my junk. I think of myself as cake:A flesh-colored icing, a grand- daddy banquet at the Hatter’s table.Ageless set of creases, a multi- layered thing, so happy to be split.Serve me on a platter washed in tears, in sweat, in any other viscous liquid.Write my name, and yours, on an iced pink chest,encircle us with a heart, squeeze what you desire from your tube of batter. [End Page 41] Robert Carr ROBERT CARR is the author of three collections of poetry: Amaranth (Indolent Books 2016), The Unbuttoned Eye (3: A Taos Press 2019), and The Heavy of Human Clouds, forthcoming from 3: A Taos Press. A seven-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Robert’s poems appear in numerous journals and anthologies. Selected by the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, he was the recipient of a 2022 artist residency at Monson Arts. At the nadir of the global AIDS pandemic, I worked full-time in infectious disease response. In my desk drawer at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, I had one book. Not a clinical text or a strategic plan, but The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll. Through Alice’s adventures in Wonderland, I found relief from the rabbit hole of premature death. “At the Hatter’s Table” revisits the queer erotic in the context of my personal and professional history. Copyright © 2023 Wayne State University Press