Handful of crushed lavender
Handful of crushed garlic
Handful of crushed starling bones
Handful of crushed starlet
Glitter-eyed, pigment-lipped,
stealthily-equipped with shiny nibs,
I lurk in the sweet stacks.
I crack bindings.
I apply ornate underlinings
to illuminate obscure cakeways. In back alleyways,
I loiter with exposed fonts
like suspicious (juvies, jewels, consommé).
Like a quivery, garnet-eyed, delinquent fawn.
The spooky song I hum could wilt
the corsage off a teenage girl’s chest;
set her underwire devices aflame.
I watch pom poms and bon bons blaze
from a bed of burnt petals.
As the perimeter of a blue mum singes, I rip open
my hidden pockets; strew strange (munitions, shrapnel, confetti):
silver dragees, lid fragments from blackberry jelly,
melting, malformed red hots
that don’t resemble hearts at all,
anatomical or (otherwise, valentines, penny candy).
Sometimes penny candy is a euphemism
for sugared verrucas, oozing;
for the way I shake this pretty
little bell like a (convalescent, courier, mutant parakeet).
Special delivery for the stylish infirmary.
I carry a rare skin disease in my beak.
I pedal a special cold cream in my bicycle basket.
I rip off the flowers and lick the deckled edges.
I specialize in frilly translations. I specialize in nocturnal cake.
How could I fake this kind of three-tiered disaster,
piñata-stuffed with broken sprockets—
malfunctional, disconnected, disengaged…
How could I fake these damaged pinions
who act like codependent princess minions.
They implant my tongue with their slick sickly sweet
and I hack it up like (spit valve debris, inedible cupcakes, frosted and feathered aberrancy).
