It rose and rose and rested, cracked and cooled.
Then came the sinking: a grammatical collapse,
showers of pixels, a rainbow of fairy sprinkles.

A rise is a rise is a rise as Aunt Gertie used to
say. She didn’t realise her diminishing cool-
ness quota was to blame for this satin glaze.

Restless children hold out flat cloud plates.
A swan whispers lyrics in Taylor Swift’s ear.

Icing causes lesions in fish brains but high
gloss strawberry stops the scroll, freezes an
acute clog of poetry into tasty hailstones.

When cygnets shake their fluffy feathers
haters will fall into a haunted panopticon.
They lick it up, lap at it until it fills a lack.

Then endlessness begins and Uncle Charlie
teaches the children how to skin a hot dog.

They swill linguini dipped in liquid silver,
meatballs gelatinous with an algae topping
and washed down with neon blue slurpees.

Buttons unclicked, the lucky ones become
initatiates of the oven mysteries. The others
pick crumbs from the rug, wait for the melt.

Dust motes float, oblivous to their singularity.
Not even electric lime icing can save the day.