Kate Kadleck
Making Mexican Street Corn
I sip a
blackberry
sour while
shucking
corn on the
porch with
my husband.
The gleaming
husks, the
downy silk
fall away,
revealing
kernels
arranged
in tidy rows
like baby
teeth.
A baseball
game plays
on the TV
inside.
My favorite
team is
winning
but soon
will lose.
My husband
smothers
the corn with
mayonnaise
and cotija
cheese. Then
I squirt
the cobs
with lime
juice.
Have you
noticed
when driving
by that the
corn is chest-
high this year?
Or that the
bees, once
gleeful, are
now more
violent than
ever? I wanted
to kiss the
spot where
the stinger
had burrowed
in my husband’s
bicep, but I
was too shy
to do it,
which happens
more often
than I would
care to admit.
Kate Kadleck is a writer and relationship therapist based in Dubuque, Iowa. She earned her MS in marriage and family therapy from Northwestern University and is the author of a chapbook, Corpse Pose (Bottlecap Press, 2025). Kate is a poetry reader for wildscape. literary journal. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in places such as Phoebe, The Turning Leaf Journal, Ivy Literary Journal, boats against the current, Rust & Moth, Moss Puppy Magazine, Cary Grant Died Here, wildscape., Tenth Muse, Thimble, The Indianapolis Review, The Garlic Press, and One Hand Clapping. Kate was also a finalist for Frontier Poetry’s Hurt & Healing Prize as well as Four Tulips’ Fantastic Mischief Contest, and her second chapbook was longlisted for C&R Press’s Winter Soup Bowl Chapbook Awards.
Artwork: “Oscillate” by Daniel Lurie
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