Katie

17

"Post-Senior Year"

Our yearbook’s staple
was an already-been-chewed cornucopia
of mass reflexive skills,
of biceps twinning with your rubber
exoskeleton—its vestigial limb
trailed in flannel, making off
like a doomsday sheriff.

The cafeteria mass-marketing
campaigns careened near the inverse.

Admissions office maps stuffed
the thin crust until Amherst
waved out your pie hole.

I blazed away behind
a shield of sand-dollar,
practicing an intolerance
for whole milk.

"Home for the Summer"

I’d like to think we sink the past—
dip biplanes into nacho cheese,
checkmate our putt putt golf caddies
their cheeks lined with crinoline
their seams sprouting fluffy and tart.

We set ourselves up for a booby trap
grinding up the bronze garden tortoise
smoking it so fumes headed hot air balloons.

They were coaxed down by whipped cream flares
streaking in engineered ombre, receding
so our customized kittens
could’ve lapped at them,
once they were off the clock.

"County Shortcake"

She was born
in a balloon of nose powder.

She farms the blowsy patch,
scrubbing the flannel hole.

On water breaks
she photocopies
a paint-by-numbers image
of her prime rib berries
bouncing out her basin.

Each morning after brushing,
she swishes complex sugars,
licks up the dilute cones,

fastening extras
to her iron belt
as she bags and sells
her jingle sprinklers
county-wide.