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Thursday, October 03, 2019

BLUE-PLATE SPECIAL

by Melissa Balmain

Image source: White Center Blog


It sounds so delicious—mmm, peach-mint
a dish of fruit, sugar and flour
that arrives piping hot, topped with cognac (a lot),
and takes minutes to make and devour.

But instead the thing's bitter and tricky
(the recipe's centuries old),
an impossible meal—a soufflé stuffed with eel—
that of course we'll be serving ice cold.

Will the one that it's for duly eat it?
Will he vomit it up on our shirts?
Who among us can say? All that's left is to pray
that in time there will be just desserts.


Melissa Balmain edits Light, a journal of comic verse. The author of Walking In on People (winner of the Able Muse Book Award), she has new and upcoming work in The American Bystander, The Hopkins Review, and Literary Matters.