Sunday, February 8, 2009

Two poems by Isaiah Vianese


Two poems
by Isaiah Vianese

Cupcake Dreams


Cupcake dreams of opening a bakery,

of glass shelves lined with loaves

hard-crusted like bricks,

of strawberry cream pie,

cookies with chocolate chips

that leave warm tracks across your lips.


But Momma tells Cupcake she's foolish,

too fat already to work with sugar and Crisco.

Momma doesn't tell Cupcake it's Momma's fault

she outgrew her britches so young,

that she fed her candy bars instead of berries

before Cupcake knew what was good for her.


Yet, Momma still reminds her she's too big

to shop at Hot Chicks' Twinky Twig Boutique.

Momma's like that warm spot

where her thighs rub when she tries to run,

making things hard when she's already out of breath.

She calls Momma a bitch

when Momma's talking too much to hear her,

but she forgives Momma.

Cupcake thinks Momma's just angry

because she's traded cupcakes

for a new boyfriend, rice cakes, and gym.

+++++++++++++++++++

The Breakup


He gives Cupcake a series of reasons she doesn't understand:

something ambiguous about him and not her

and about the moon rotating in and out of sight,

something about roads and forks with jagged edges,

riding bicycles in a canyon without spokes,

the chain falling off, a landslide of stone,

coyotes howling, and again the damn moon

minding everyone's business except her own, and maybe the sun's.

Anyway, the message is so buried in epic metaphor and allusion,

Cupcake isn't sure which part is reason,

and which is simile,

or reference to some smart film she has somehow not seen,

even though it had won an award

and Halle Berry or some other pretty actress had proven

she was not just a pretty face and could play a serial killer

or someone with no money without even smirking at the thought

that someone as skinny as herself with perfect skin

could actually find herself in a situation that would force her

to put her newly manicured hands into blood or dirt, or use a shovel,

or live in a trailer with three kids that don't even look like her

and that she would likely just have shipped off to boarding school

or sent to etiquette class before she actually lived with them.

Cupcake doesn't even try to understand

but lets the man get teary and say that he loves her

yet it's time for him to move on,

and as she shuts the door behind his sorry ass

she wonders what had happened between their first date,

their first sex, and now that could bring about such things,

but as she thinks, night comes and the damn moon

keeps spreading her two-sense in every room of Cupcake's apartment,

so Cupcake pulls the shades in hopes that tomorrow,

in the sunlight, everything will look clear.


Author bio:

Isaiah Vianese lives and writes in Missouri. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Cherry Blossom Review, Unfettered Verse, and The Fourth River. For more information on Isaiah, please stop by ivianesefromyes.blogspot.com.

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