Four poems by Isaiah Vianese

Cupcake poems
by Isaiah Vianese

BEACH CUPCAKE

Cupcake lies down
on her towel, decked out
in a pink lycra one-piece. Belly big
from too much frosting. Arms speckled
with mole and freckle sprinkles.

If ants ate people alive, ten thousand
would gather under her mass
and carry her to their sand-castle
for a year's worth of feasting.

She's the girl Momma points out when
you want desert at the birthday party. The girl
they said was too fat to play Ugly Betty. The girl
the cabana boys don't offer a plastic chair .

But don't worry about them, Cupcake.
Some people plainly lack sugar.
Just lie there and bake a while.

*********************

CUPCAKE AND COFFEE

Coffee—that legal addictive stimulate,
his skin the color of leather,
hair the color of ebony marble hard with crystals.
Rich like Solomon,
full-bodied and round-voiced like Pavaratti,
like velvet with cream,
like dessert when laced with sugar.
Perhaps it's unwise to sip.
But when he slides into her cup,
when he charms her with his scent, with his Italian lingo,
with his beautiful frothy bubbles,
Cupcake can't resist. She's in love.
She's knows he's bad and their affair will be disastrous.
She knows she'll feel high when he's around,
and then down without him.
She knows he'll keep her up all night.
She knows he's naughty,
he's part of the mafia,
his business enslaves poor farmers in South America,
but she's hooked. It's over.
She'll try to leave him,
but he'll find her at a restaurant,
during dinner at a friend's house,
in a café.
Even when she's old, he'll be there,
waiting in the kitchen, too close to the knives,
dangerously hot,
asking her to sit down to another cup.

###################

CUPCAKE NIGHTMARE

There's no ice cream cones
and no sprinkles. Little girls
are eating apples, no chocolate
on ther fingers or faces. Life-size
Barbies are handing out soy bars
to the neighbors.

The Barbies have descended
on the street like aliens with
plastic pod-boobs too big
for their bodies. They are
dressed in pink and yellow
miniskirts, in go-go boots
with glitter platform heals.

They're making the neighbors
trade their fat kids for skinny
robots with shiny metal hands
and faces.

A Barbie taps her molded
fingers against the glass
of Momma's front door. She
lets the Barbie inside, points
her in the direction of Cupcake
in her bed. The Barbie pulls
a screaming Cupcake from under
her sheets and carries her away
to be chopped up in pieces
like Fat Tina, Gus-gus, Albert,
and the other heavy kids.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

CUPCAKE WITH POPPED CHERRY

I had not anticipated that giving of myself so freely
could be perfect:
my loins a perfect treat,
my legs spread at the last course of the meal,
all sprinkles and whipped toppings wiped aside,
nothing left but bear fruit, naked berry,
lonely shining red cherry.

I had so little expectation,
had put my sex on the back of the canning shelf
behind the pickled corpse,
behind the jam of burgundy berries that would never be eaten,
next to the old peaches and plums in syrup,
but when he offered me dinner and a movie,
I accepted the invitation with hesitation
for I had been so long quiet and alone.

And when the dinner was over,
he took me back to his place,
we undressed, and as I watched him
remove his shirt, his pants, his vanilla colored underwear,
I saw he was not perfect—like myself,
too much butter on his belly,
too much jelly on the rolls of hips—but
he was beautiful.

Then he found his way inside me
and discovered that forgotten fruit, that discarded crop,
and made with it a violent eruption,
made me a Cupcake with popped cherry.


Author bio:

Isaiah Vianese is a (starving) poet and MFA candidate at Pacific University in Oregon. His work is also forthcoming in The Fourth River. For more information on Isaiah, please check out ivianesefromyes.blogspot.com