Lee Upton
Issue No. 19 • Spring 2018
Would you care for
more cake with your cake?
It’s a cake beyond all cakes, isn’t it?
In the interior
a little bit of summer in a pouch
and a buried pencil case, plaid.
You say it isn’t your birthday
so why the cake?
The chainmail, we admit,
makes slicing prohibitive,
and the rosette, we admit,
looks like a scar that won’t heal or even a
bullet or a tattoo gone wrong.
But we made it for you, this cake,
and those right there are blister pearls,
edible inside that oyster that’s open
as a coffin with a gelatin lung
on the rim.
So eat your cake before
your cake crawls away,
which can happen if you’re not alert.
We know you can’t thank us enough.
We once saw a baby who looked exactly
like a rat. That baby grew into
a handsome man. So today if
you don’t like your cake, wait.
If the time isn’t right next time we’ll outdo ourselves.
For now, it’s your cake
and it’s not going to eat itself.
What? You’re going to
set fire to the cake? Oh! Then it must be
your birthday after all.
We have our ways—with cake
and without cake.
It’s really our cake anyhow.