cleave
Jeanann Verlee

He plopped it down like a mound of bad pudding
but it settled upright, a proud cupcake,
skin still prickling like gooseflesh,
the brown button at its peak popping up
like a thermometer from a perfectly broiled
rump roast, saluting the way it did for clumsy
school boys behind the library under thick
pink sweaters, a gumdrop even the anesthesiologist
wanted to pop into her mouth.

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